Come With Me Now
by Idream3223
Summary: Eric's Voice: "Today was a good day to die. In the moments I had left, Sookie pressed to my back, guns in her hands, guns in mine and Death hovering in the corner, remembrance tugged at me. Like a loose thread in my mind I went back to where this all started. I wanted to spend what time I had left remembering how I got my Happily Ever After, because that is what mattered. "
1. Half Life

**Come With Me Now- Half Life**

_What's the half-life on 'Happily Ever After? For me and Sookie it should be just about infinity divided by two, but things never quite work out like they should when it comes to me and Sookie_. I felt her stiffen against my back and knew she had just heard that.

"Damn right I did, Northman and you cut it the fuck out right now!" Her hissed whisper made it plain she was not fucking around. I felt the despair crack in my chest, a little light coming in at her words. She chucked softly behind me and for a moment pressed her back tighter to mine. _Gods, she is amazing. Looking down the barrel of a gun loaded with iron bullets and she is thinking of me._ "Fuckin'-A", she confirmed. Pulling out of my downward spiral I smiled slightly as I looked straight ahead and found myself facing a barrel full of silver bullets.

We were surrounded. A dozen guns with various flavors of pain encircled me and woman I loved beyond all things. It was so quiet in the room I could hear the sink drip…drip…dripping behind me and to the right. The dozen adversaries that encircled us holding us at gunpoint were slowly realizing they had actually caught us. When their brains caught up with their muscles things were going to come out of pause and we were going into fast forward. We had run out of places to hide in this world. _She deserved better than this! _She laughed then, out loud.

"There is nothing better than you, than us, Eric." My chest seized at her words. I felt her in the full bond we now shared, there no fear. No regret. Only love, deep spiraling, unending love. No matter what happened when someone pushed play, right then I knew that the time we had was right. It was the best of my thousand years and I would trade it for nothing, even if it ended right now. I pushed that feeling of love and triumph back to her and again she pressed her back to mine. I wanted to touch her, hold her close, but like himself both her hands were full of metal. We might die here but we would not be going to Valhalla alone. We would be taking these assholes with us, and she would stand beside me and fight their unworthy shades all the way to Freya's hall.

Today was a good day to die. In the moments I had left, Sookie pressed to my back, guns in her hands, guns in mine and Death hovering in the corner, remembrance tugged at me. Like a loose thread in my mind I went back to where this all started. I wanted to spend what time I had left remembering how I got my Happily Ever After, because that is what mattered. How long it lasted was always beyond our control. What mattered was that after so very long, I had reached that place with her at my side. I had reached that place with Sookie, the woman of my undead dreams.

_**Three years ago…**_

I had stood in the woods and watched as she waddled to the table with yet another dish of food. I had stood in the woods and watched as she stepped into the arms of another and then sat down, heavily pregnant and joined all he friends and family for a meal that he had not been invited to share.

Everyone else was present, Lafayette, Jason, Arlene, even Willa, my progeny had a place at this magical table of food and forgiveness. I felt my heart ache that not only was I supplanted at the head of her table, I was not even invited to share it, at all. I felt a lone blood tear slide down my cheek as I allowed myself to feel the pain of this rejection. I wanted to run, I wanted to fly, I wanted to forget again, and wondered for a moment if I could call Marnie forth from the grave and bribe her into taking my memories again.

This time for good.

My pain was overwhelming and not being able to stand another moment of seeing all this happiness and joy that I had been barred from sharing I took to the sky with such force that I broke the sound barrier. Thunder echoed my departure from the warm scene. As I flew through the sky I allowed myself to think all the things that I usually kept back. I allowed myself to feel all the things that usually I suppressed, that dark maelstrom of emotion swept me up and despair took me as it had in Morocco, in France.

My taste for oysters was slipping again.

I shouldn't have gone tonight! But I needed the smell of her to be refreshed in my mind. I did not want to forget that she smelled like…nothing.

Nothing?

I stopped in midflight, suspended in the air. I did not smelled her tonight. Running quickly through the catalog of people there, I realized that I had smelled none of them at all.

And Willa? I had released her but I could still sense our tie faintly in my blood, especially when she's less than a dozen yards away.

Something wasn't right.

I turned around and flew back toward Hummingbird Lane.

32XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX23

There had been lanterns in the trees. There had been tables in the yard. Just moments ago this had been a party that I had not been invited to.

Now, the party was gone.

The yard clearly had not been touched in years. The windows of her home that I had painted yellow like she sun she was to me were boarded over.

No one was here.

No one had been here in a very long time.

Someone had stolen my Sookie! Self- loathing filled me, I had been in Shreveport nursing my broken heart like a self-indulgent tween! My scream of rage split the night.

"**SOOKIEEEEEEEEEE!"**

Her name was still echoing in the woods around her abandoned home when a bright lavender light split the night next to my head. I turned toward it, still in the grips of my rage, ready to kill anyone and everyone who came near me.

A large scroll hanging in mid-air unfurled itself before me, the calligraphy a deep purple that called to mind ages past when handwriting was as much as art as oils and sculpture.

**Viking,**

**Sookie is safe, for now.**

It could be lies. It probably was lies, but I needed her to be all right. I needed her to be my, Sookie. That had never changed.

**She is someplace that only you can find, if your heart is true and if you remember the road to love.**

**Walk that path again. Claim your love there.**

**Take this scroll if you wish to see her again, or walk away now and never turn back.**

**The choice is yours.**

Not hesitating, I reached out and grasped the scroll, feeling a charge of electricity travel up my arm, not unlike the feeling I got when I touched Sookie. The reminder was pleasant, calming and I chose to take it as sign that I had made the right choice. Never mind that I was the only one I could make. The scroll started to light up again and I watched as the script changed.

**To find the path you must go back the beginning. Start where you heart first knew what you mind was not ready to accept.**

"I'm coming, Sookie!" I vowed, taking to the air again, scroll clutched tightly in my hand love and determination filling my heart.


	2. You Shame Me

"_I'm coming, Sookie!" I vowed, taking to the air again, scroll clutched tightly in my hand love and determination filling my heart._

**Come With Me Now- You Shame Me**

I was going to do something! That old feeling of excitement and anticipation filled me along with love and determination. This is what it feels like to be alive! I thought, and then right behind that came the realization that I had no idea what the _something_ was that I was going to do. I stopped in mid-flight and hung in the sky unsure which way to go.

_**Start where your heart first knew what your mind what not ready to accept.**_

When did my heart know? When did I know that I would never be whole without her by my side? I closed my eyes and let the images flip past like flash cards. Moments frozen in my immortal memory of her smile, her head tilted as she looked at me like I was insane, of her looking at me with love and trust, of her looking at me with rage and passion. I had not allowed myself to recall our history for some time now. It was too painful, but seeing her again with perfect recall was like conjuring the medicine I needed to heal. I shivered and felt my hand reach out into the dark empty sky as though I could touch her again.

_**Start where your heart first knew what your mind was not ready to accept.**_

Of course. It _**had**_ to be then. Keeping my eyes closed I felt my head drop in shame at the recollection of _**the**_ moment. Then I heard the sound of rushing wind and when I opened my eyes I saw a large purple vortex opening in the sky before me. The scroll tingled in my hand I knew that I was supposed to go in. So, I did.

32XXXXXXXXXXXX23

I came out in the basement of Fangtasia, inside Yvetta. I had been fucking her for hours, demanding with my body that she pleasure me, that she distract me, that she be…someone else. Nothing she did was right, nothing I did was right and I could not admit why. The door opened and I heard Sookie.

_Sookie._

My body stopped and my mind took me back to the roof when she touched my hand. My eyes drifted closed and I knew then what I had been doing and why it wasn't working. Yvetta was not what I wanted. She never would be.

"Holy S!" she exclaimed behind me.

"Sookie," my eyes came open as I pulled out of Yvetta, still rock hard, and turned to face her. My cock was pointing like the needle of a compass at what was now it's true north. "See anything you like?"

"I do," Pam purred eyeing the exhausted woman behind me. She was going to get her wish sooner than she could imagine.

"I take it Sookie couldn't be stopped?"

"What can I say?" What can any us of say, I wondered? "She overpowered me." As she did me, I thought.

"Off you go, Pam." I knew I was going to say something that I did not want Pam to see.

"Fine."

"Sookie, meet my new dancer, Yvetta, from Estonia. Yvetta, meet, Sookie, from here." Manners were nothing but a way to stall. They always had been.

"Hi." Always the polite southern lady, even as she averted her eyes. I moved to stand before her, I wanted her to see me. All of me. Everyone wanted me. They always did. I could reach her that way at least. I put my hands on my hips, attempting to force her gaze to my large erection, needing her to see what she did to me just with her mere presence.

"What brings you to Fangtasia on this balmy summer night?" Say me, please say me.

"You." She stood back and crossed her arms, slowly looking me over from head to toe, licking her lips slowly, sensuously when her eyes paused on my cock. When she met my eyes again my brain still hadn't started to work. This is not how this had happened at all! She had come here to talk to me about Bill getting his dumbass kidnapped by werewolves.

"Me? Why?" She walked around me now and moved to stand in front of Yvetta, who at first glance was chained, but was in actuality only holding on to the chains that she had wrapped around her own wrists to help steady her during sex. I remembered then, the purple portal, the scroll, which I did not see currently in the basement, and the fact that she had been taken. Was she really here? Was this then or now?

"You brought me here." I turned again to face her, waiting for more information about where and when we were. She was still looking at Yvetta, her back to me. I moved to stand in front of her. "She was so mad at you, you know?" My brain skipped like a needle on a record.

"Mad?"

"Yeah. When you dumped her." So, this was now. She remembered this event from the past. I took her shoulders in my hands, ignoring Yvetta and my nudity as I pulled her close, locking her in my arms.

"I found you!" She laughed a mirthless laugh into my chest.

"No, you didn't." I pulled back to look down at her, my face drawing down into a frown.

"Explain," I demanded. She shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. You explain. You explain why you brought me back to this shitty basement _again_ to make me watch you fuck her, _again_!" She jerked free of my hands as though my touch burned her and took a step back from me, giving her a clear view of me and of Yvetta.

"I found you gone. I was told to come to-" I stopped.

"To what?" she prompted, her tone as cold as the cement floor against my feet. "You were told to what, Eric?" So, here I was. The only time I had ever been able to talk to her was when I couldn't remember what she meant to me. When the witch stole everything I was and left me an innocent, unaware of what it felt like to love and to trust and to have that love and trust shattered into a thousand sharp spikes that could be used to cut and burn my undead flesh. This woman had broken my heart so many fucking times. So many fucking times.

My nakedness had not bothered me up to that point but as I considered how to answer her I felt too naked. What had been a tool to make her uncomfortable then had turned into something that made me uncomfortable now. I reached for my red silk robe that had been hanging on a bar next to Yvetta and moved to shrug it on.

"STOP!" her voice rang out in the basement, echoing. I stopped moving, one arm in the sleeve and looked toward her. "You wanted to be naked, so be naked, Eric. Take it all off for me, right now." Her tone was still cold, but her words were clear. She would stomach no hiding of any kind from me this night. I dropped the red silk to the floor and stood tall before her, grateful that she reminded me that I was many things but a coward would not be one of them tonight.

"As you wish," I nodded my head her slightly in deference.

"To what, Eric?"

"I was told to come to the place where my heart first knew what my mind was not ready to accept." She smirked then, and I felt one of those shards slide into my undead heart. I caught a glimpse of why I had been hiding in Shreveport for the last three years.

"I said, take…it…all…off. Stop fucking around, Eric." Anger rose in me then. I was a bastard, I knew this better than anyone, but I had never been a bastard to her. Never. To. Her. "Aww, am I making you angry? Am I making you feel bad?"

"You're not, Sookie," I told the face stealer before me. She had hurt me yes, but she had never enjoyed hurting me. This wasn't her.

"Wrong. As usual. It's been three years since you saw me, Eric. What makes you think you know anything about who I am now?"

"Because some things don't change."

"And some things, do. You have no idea where I have been and what I have been through, yet you dare to call me here tonight to watch you fuck Yvetta. Do you want to hurt me some more? Is that what this about? You haven't gotten your pound of flesh yet, Eric? I haven't bled for you enough yet?!" She was screaming now, and her eyes held the look of woman teetering on the edge of madness. My heart of shards ached for her.

"What the fuck happened, Sookie? Tell me, please." My arms reached out for her without consulting my brain. She made my body stupid that way.

"NO! YOU DON'T GET TO ASK ME THAT! YOU DON'T GET TO SUMMON ME AND ASK ME ANYTHING! DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU DON'T GET TO DO THAT!" She took a deep breath and stepped back, bringing herself under control. "You called me here, so now I get to ask the questions. You need me. When I decide I need you, if I decide I need you, then you will get to ask your questions." Oddly, she reminded me of myself in that moment. If this was her, she had indeed changed in the past three years.

I looked at her, in that stupid fucking lavender dress that Compton had bought her, because it wasn't something she could have afforded on a waitress' salary and realized that as per usual I was fucking this up. I let out a useless sigh and stood there before her, waiting for her to throw whatever shards she had left. I took a small amount of comfort in knowing she was alive, and fashioned that comfort into a shield for what surely was to come next.

"What did your heart know in this room?" I kept my head down and focused on the floor.

"That she wasn't you, would never be you, and I only wanted you. That…I would only ever want you." I heard her move and her matching lavender pumps came into my field of vision on the floor.

"You told me that night that you wanted what was Bill's."

"Yes," I said to her feet.

"I remember your face. I stored that memory for later, I was too distracted at the time, but I remember that you looked so vulnerable when you said it. Then I would get angry that you had distracted me with your nakedness, your boldness and then blindsided me with your vulnerability. Then I would hear Bill's voice reminding me that you were a master manipulator with a thousand years of experience in getting what you wanted and I would get so mad that you played me that way." My gaze locked with hers then.

"I DID NOT PLAY YOU!" she did not even flinch at my roaring in her face.

"So you say," but she sounded a little unsure of herself now. "So you say, now. But if that was true why did you never tell me."

"You wouldn't have heard me."

"You don't know that, you didn't know that. You don't know how many times I replayed that moment. How many times I saw your face and how many times I told myself how stupid I was for thinking that you might have wanted something from me other than a fast fuck in chains that you could one up Bill with when next you saw him." I shook with rage at her accusations. Is this really what she thought of me, even now? After everything that had transpired between us since that night she had come here and truly lived this experience?

What could I say to that?

I stood before her, my heart as always on my sleeve, if I had been permitted to wear one, and she refused to see me, to hear me. I might be fucking this up, but I had a partner who was working just as hard at it.

"You're right, I don't know. I don't know because you never told me."

"Oh! And how would that have gone? 'Eric, I think that you are a big faker! I think you are not made of stone after all. I think I see depth inside you, and I think there is love there!' What would you have said to that, when you were done laughing?"

"I would not have laughed. I would have told you that you were right. I would have told you that the love you see is only for Sookie, only for you!" She blinked back tears, though from rage or pain I could not tell, and wondered for a moment if there was any difference, and if there were did it matter?

"LIAR!" she whispered viciously at me.

"NO!" I screamed back just as quietly. "I am many, many things Miss Stackhouse, but I am not a liar."

"You felt me that night. You had already tricked me into taking your blood, and you knew what I was feeling that night. You know what your words did to me. All those nights you felt me, you felt my hope and you felt my anger and you felt my pain. AND YOU SAID NOTHING!" Her finger was pressed into my chest now, accusing me of letting her down.

"Yes, I felt you! I felt your hope and your anger, but I didn't know it was mine. I told myself that you emotions were for your precious Bill, and I tried to pretend that it didn't burn like silver that you felt nothing for me but pity and contempt!"

"Pity and contempt? You thought that was what I felt for you?" her shock overcoming her rage for a moment on her face.

"Yes, I felt it from the moment that Bill pointed out I could sense your emotions after the bomb exploded Dallas. It hissed in my soul like a den of snakes!"

"I WAS THINKING ABOUT MYSELF YOU GIANT VIKING MORON!"

"What?" She stepped back away from me quickly, embarrassed to have revealed herself to me so plainly and in her hurry, lost her footing. I caught her effortlessly and pulled her close my chest, bending her back slightly as I leaned down to press my face closer to hers, demanding an explanation. "What did you say, Sookie?" When she answered her voice was so small and quiet I had to strain to hear her at all.

"The pity and contempt were for me. You wanted your blood in me to control me, you wanted to use me to hurt Bill. I wanted you to want ME, Eric. I wanted it to be about me. I pitied myself that the dream of that would be forever out of my reach and I felt nothing but contempt for not being able to stop wanting a man who did not want me in return." I nearly dropped her to floor in shock. "It was a game to you. It was a game then and it's a game now. You shame me with my desire for you, Eric. I can't let you do that again. Not again."

Before I could speak she disappeared from my arms, leaving me for a moment in the basement with Yvetta behind me, and only the scent of her to prove that she had ever been there at all. Before I could think, the room was bathed in lavender light and I was standing there fully clothed wearing what I had had on earlier when I took to the sky to find her. I still had the scroll clutched tightly in my hand and behind me Yvetta had become Sarah Newlin. She was whimpering and whispering to a ghost that only she could see about being thankful for nothing.

I thought for the second time in as many days that she had lost her mind.

Perhaps I could ask her where to find mine.


	3. The First Interlude

**Come With Me Now- The First Interlude**

Less than six hours after the last vampire was liberated from the prison camp the Louisiana National Guard rolled in. Within moments they were packing up all the files, computers and samples that had been collected there over the past few months.

"I don't want so much as even a paper clip left behind here!" General Clinton bellowed as he walked through the rooms, stepping over bodies and supervising his soldiers packing. Much information had been learned here in such a short time, and he had been tasked with retrieving that research and continuing to build on it somewhere else. Conscious that his men were hyper aware of his every move he suppressed a shudder as he thought about the newest member of his government research team. He could not stand to be in a room with him, and no matter what the folks in charge thought of him and what a great asset he would be to the project Clinton would never trust him.

In his soul he knew that there was another agenda being worked and it was not that of the U.S. Government. At least that is what he told himself to sleep at night. But he didn't get to be a general by rocking the boat, at least not until he had a good seat and tight hold on the sides. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer they had told him", like he was some green rookie in from his first tour. _Fuck 'em. They'll see that letting some enemies in too close would lead to having your throat ripped out._ Anyone who would turn against their own was not a worthy ally.

General Randolph Clinton was fourth generation military. A member of his family had been in every conflict World War I. He had been raised to a code of honor and decency that seemed to be lost to the world today. When he spoke, he spoke as he had been raised and indoctrinated to speak. He spoke to the larger goal, and the greater vision and he took his orders from Uncle Sam. There had never been a task that he had not been called upon to deliver that had not been delivered above and beyond. When he thought though, he had started to wonder if the days of honor and meaning had passed on without him, making him a man out of his place and his time.

Since the great revelation that vampires lived and walked among them he had kept his eyes open and his mouth shut. Everyone had an opinion, and few of those opinions were formed on any factual information. Sometimes it seemed that Uncle Sam had become the kind of force that he had been raised to stand in opposition of every day of his life. To his way of thinking it was wrong to tax the vampires and still treat them as less than citizens. You could have it one way or the other, but not both. Taxation, representation, citizens, the very tenants this country had been founded on were being trod asunder in the way the vampire population was being handled. Well, unofficially handled. He sighed and looked around the room.

What he saw here was not unlike the stories his grandfather had told him about the concentration camps in Germany. What was it about the fact that these were vampires made this all right? Burrell had lost his little mind down here, that was for sure, but he was not the only one running this kind of government sanctioned facility. There were several, and they were all off the books. They had become a hive of activity when word reached them that Burrell had been murdered by a vampire and his camp had been liberated. Voices screaming on Capitol Hill calling out for vengeance. Randolph knew he had a duty to those voices and he was here to fulfill it.

Pushing back his personal thoughts, saving them for the wee hours of the night when he would pull them out again and share them with a glass of brandy, he moved down the corridor toward the executive offices. Halfway down the hall he heard a woman's voice.

"When we say forever, we have to mean it…"

Clinton found two soldiers watching a video session of a female vampire on a couch talking to a psychiatrist. _Christ, really? I had known some hard and twisted shit had taken place here, but I had no idea that they had started psycho analyzing them! What the hell had Burrell been up to down here?_

"What the fuck is going on in here?" he barked at the two young soldiers who were intently watching the screen. They jumped about a foot off the floor and reached to turn the computer off. "Leave it!" he commanded, "And get the fuck back to packing!"

"Sir, yes, Sir!" they answered in unison, scrambling to get the files into the box and moving out the room as quickly as possible. Clinton looked back to the screen and saw that the vampire was now talking about her past.

"I thought that the connection between a vampire and the one who made them was unbreakable. What happened that drove you from the arms of your sire?"

"Maker. We call them our makers. The doctor scribbled down some notes. _He looks like a smarmy little fuck_, Clinton thought as the session resumed.

"Ah, your maker then. What happened that drove you from the arms of your maker?"

"Magical fairy flavored vagina."

"I'm sorry, what does that mean?"

"Nothing. Can I have a drink now?"

Shaking his head Clinton turned off the computer screen. _Fucking shrinks, they were everywhere analyzing everything, and usually it all went back to toilet training and shitty parents. Well, in this case possibly shitty 'makers'. _

"Sir," his lieutenant called from the door. He turned, acknowledging the soldier. "We have the first truck loaded. Where is this stuff headed to, sir?"

"Nevada," Clinton answered dismissing the soldier, and following him from the room, already looking for some safe place to park his well decorated ass and latch on for a tight hold.


	4. Bleeding In The Dark

_"The pity and contempt were for me. You wanted your blood in me to control me, you wanted to use me to hurt Bill. I wanted you to want ME, Eric. I wanted it to be about me. I pitied myself that the dream of that would be forever out of my reach and I felt nothing but contempt for not being able to stop wanting a man who did not want me in return." I nearly dropped her to floor in shock. "It was a game to you. It was a game then and it's a game now. You shame me with my desire for you, Eric. I can't let you do that again. Not again."_

_Before I could speak she disappeared from my arms, leaving me for a moment in the basement with Yvetta behind me, and only the scent of her to prove that she had ever been there at all. Before I could think, the room was bathed in lavender light and I was standing there fully clothed wearing what I had had on earlier when I took to the sky to find her. I still had the scroll clutched tightly in my hand and behind me Yvetta had become Sarah Newlin. She was whimpering and whispering to a ghost that only she could see about being thankful for nothing._

_I thought for the second time in as many days that she had lost her mind. _

_Perhaps I could ask her where to find mine._

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**Come With Me Now- Bleeding In The Dark**

Needing to distance myself from the waves of crazy that were rolling off Sarah I moved quickly up the stairs and to my office. I sat down behind the desk and replayed what I had just learned. She had wanted me all those years ago. Before I lost my memories. She had wanted me, too. I ran my hand through my hair, angry at having lost so much time, at having missed so many chances, at having misunderstood so many things. Pride had always been my downfall.

No, that's not right. I had offered her everything, humbled myself for her over and over again and she had spurned me. Even before I could speak the words I offered my body and my blood for her, and she didn't want them! My hand came down on the top of desk, splintering the wood. It creaked and collapsed on my legs. Kicking it across the room in frustration I stood and started to pace. I always paced when I was feeling this way, it lent the illusion of action and made me feel at least like I was doing something. It made me feel like I was taking some action to right whatever had gotten fucked up this time.

She was gone. AGAIN. I had no idea where to find her, and I was less than certain that she wanted to see me again. Perhaps she needed some time to think. I needed time to think. I stopped pacing and stood frozen in the room.

How many times have I come to the edge of this and backed away to think. To stop feeling and get my strategic planning on? Every time. It was how I worked. Emotion overwhelmed me. Cold logical thought was how I functioned, so when she overloaded my senses I pulled back, every time.

AND THAT HAD NEVER WORKED.

I had to try and push on now. Logic, while being pushed aside demanded that I try something different that MIGHT work, as opposed to doing what I knew had NEVER worked.

I looked at the scroll in my hand, still somehow intact despite my supernaturally strong hold and jerked my arm unfurling it.

"Tell me what's next!" I demanded as though it could answer me. To my surprise it did. It shimmered and before me more beautiful violet calligraphy appeared on its surface.

**"Mr. Northman, won't you please come in?"**

"Hrphm!" I said, not knowing whether to laugh or break more furniture. Another stellar night for me. Slowly, I rolled the scroll and moved toward my office door, headed for the next destination. I opened my office door and stepped out into the grave yard, where I found myself in the middle of shoveling a grave back in. I hesitated but a moment as I adjusted to this change and then, as I had then, continued to dig and explain.

"The grounds already disturbed, so no one would think to dig again."

"So much for keeping him alive so we could question him."

"Well, that's what I was planning."

"But then you saw his brand."

"It brings back many memories. Unpleasant ones."

"If you'd given me a chance to listen to his thoughts-"

"You have no concept of how dangerous werewolves are! They're virtually silent. They have no fear of death. And when they have had a bit of our blood their strength can be a challenge. Even for me."

"Was it hard for you to show me that weakness?"

"Wha-" I stopped. I had almost forgotten again, gotten too caught up in remembering, in saying my lines. This was not happening, was happening, was always happening? Was I always just saying my lines? I stopped and focused on her question.

"Yes." I stuck the shovel in the ground and moved to face her, needing and wanting to be close to her. As she had been that night she was back in work uniform, little black shorts and a tight white t-shirt. Merlotte was such a pig dressing and parading her this way. I always meant to kill him for showing her such disrespect.

"Why? If you wanted me, why was it hard to show me your true face?"

"A thousand years of hiding it? The fact that I wanted you to see me as the hero and look at me as you did Bill, like there was nothing I couldn't do? The fact that I was reeling from feeling anything at all for the first time in a very long time and I didn't know how to process it? Perhaps…" I stopped and swallowed. Each suggestion of why it had been hard for me to reveal myself had brought her a step closer to me and I could feel the warmth of her body now just hairs breadth from own.

"Perhaps?" she prodded gently.

"Perhaps, I was afraid you would laugh and lose confidence in my ability to protect you."

"But you did it anyway?"

"And you didn't appreciate in the slightest."

"I DID SO!" She was glaring up at me now, but she had not moved back.

"No, you didn't. You started talking about going to get, Bill. You were always talking about Bill." She scrunched her face up at me, like she did sometimes when she was faced with an unpleasant truth that she did not want to accept.

"You said you weren't a liar," she answered softly, looking up at me.

"And I am not."

"You opened this night by confessing that you had lied to me at Fangtasia when I came to ask about the runic symbol on the werewolf's neck. Have you told so many lies that you had forgotten this one?" Now I took a step back.

"You won't distract me by talking fast. I do not deny that I did lie to you, once. But the fact that I am not a liar by nature brought me to your doorstep to confess my transgression almost immediately. Now, admit that you did not appreciate my admission in the slightest." She took a step to me and closed the distance bringing us back to where we had been.

"You confessed because you wanted to have passionate primal sex with me."

"Yes. I won't deny that." She sighed, but didn't move away.

"Games. It's always games with you, Eric."

"No. It's not a game with you It was NEVER a game with you!"

"Sure it is. You told me that you were risking everything to tell me about the Nazi werewolves, and that the goal had been to protect me and when I pressed you to explain what those pulse pounding heart breaking words meant you started talking about fucking me to distract me. And when I pointed that out to you, you told me that you had already distracted me!" I smiled slightly at the memory she evoked.

"Yes, I did confess to you again. And it meant nothing. A moment later you started talking about Bill and how you were still his."

"So, what? I was still his."

"And you never ever once got tired of fucking reminding me of it, did you?" She dropped her gaze and looked at the ground. Again, I barely heard her reply.

"I was reminding myself." My hand came up catching her chin and making her look at me.

"Yourself?"

"Yes." Tears were slipping down her cheeks now.

"Why did you need to remind yourself that you belonged to Bill?"

"Because that night on the porch I wanted you to kiss me so bad it hurt. You had to feel my pain, Eric."

"Yes, I thought-" I stopped. Gathering myself I pushed on, "I thought it was pain from missing him, and not knowing where he was or what had happened to him." She laughed.

"It should have been. I should have been thinking about nothing else. I was only thinking of you though. I wanted you to kiss me, but I knew that you never would. I knew you were just making fun of me and the stupid girly crush you knew I had for you, so, I reminded myself that I belonged to Bill. That at least someone wanted me, even if that someone was not you."

"Stop saying that! Every time you say that it is killing me just a little more inside!" My fangs came down then, completely unbidden, but in response to the pain in my chest as she revealed another layer of herself and her pain to me. Her tears were running faster now and I could feel her getting ready to run. "Stay, please, Sookie! Don't go yet, there is so much more to say!"

"Like what? How foolish I am? How ridiculous I was with you that night. God, I feel sick when I think of what a fool I made of myself with you over and over!" I threw my head back and roared my anger and devastation into the night. I had tricked my blood into her and our tie had done nothing but mislead me from the beginning. How could I have missed so much? How could I have gotten so much wrong? I fell to my knees in front of her, beside the freshly re-dug grave and felt my own tears slide down my cheeks.

I was such a fucking fool.

"Please, Sookie. Please stop. I love you. You know I love you. You know I have always loved you. You words, they burn me. Please stop!" She dropped to her knees in front of me, her hands cupping my face, making me see her and her pain.

"I thought that, too, Eric. I thought that how I felt for you would kill me it was so big and scary and confusing. It burned me so fucking bad that all I wanted sometimes was to cut you out of my heart and out of my soul. I thought that, too. But when I knew you felt me and you didn't fucking care, I began to accept that pain doesn't kill you because day after day and night after night I survived. Every night you did not come to me I survived! That you would turn this around on me now, is the worst thing you have ever done, and you have done some terrible things to me, Eric."

"No! Never, I never…" but as I wanted to deny her accusations I remembered that there had been things. Things that now shamed _me_ and my love for her. Things that I had justified to myself and never explained to her at all, because I thought she didn't care either way. All she ever spoke of was Bill. It was easy to be the villain since she would never let me be the hero in our little fucked up story.

"I'm so sorry, Sookie. So very fucking sorry that I ever hurt you."

"Then why did you do it? If you're sorry, if you loved me, then why did you do it?"

"I think I…I think I found it easy to do what needed to be done, to make the hard choices because I thought that you would be happy as long as Bill was the hero. As long Bill could be your hero, what happened to me didn't matter. What you thought about me didn't matter. Maybe I was just happy for you to think of me at all, even if you couldn't think well of me."

Her thumb came up and wiped the blood from my face and she looked me oddly turning her head to the side as if she was trying to understand what I had just said.

"In the moments I had to myself, in the quiet times, in every breath, I thought of you from the moment we met. When I saw you at Fangtasia for the first time I was struck dumb at your beauty, at the feelings you brought out in me when you talked to me, when you looked at me. I remember thinking, 'someone like that would never be interested in someone like me.' Every time you tricked me, pushed me away, and did something terrible to me, I knew I had been right." She stood then, looking down at me. "You'd think that I would get some satisfaction out of being right, but it hurt like a mutherfucker every time."

I watched as she disappeared again, running away to I knew not where, and I lacked the heart to chase her. I had done enough. Lost in my own pain I had missed hers and read things wrong at every side and turn. I thought she could see me, but I had never shown her anything that she could see. I thought she had left me, had rejected me, but from her perspective it had been a very different story.

As soon as she disappeared the night shifted around me and I was still beside the grave where we had put the were, but now grass covered its surface showing that much time had passed since that night so long ago. I could sense dawn only a short time away. I thought about digging into the grave for the day but then I remembered that the last time I had seen Sookie she had said I could come in if I wanted. Perhaps that was still true.

When I landed on the porch I pulled the boards off the door and found that she had not rescinded my invitation after that night. For some reason that eased the ache in me a little. For as long as she had been here she had still been hoping that I would come back. She had still wanted me to come back. The cubby was musty but it would do for the day. I lay down on the bed, the lights were not working because the power was off but I didn't need them.

I could bleed in the dark.


	5. Shackles & Chains

_When I landed on the porch I pulled the boards off the door and found that she had not rescinded my invitation after that night. For some reason that eased the ache in me a little. For as long as she had been here she had still be hoping that I would come back. She had still wanted me to come back. The cubby was musty but it would do for the day. I lay down on the bed, the lights were not working because the power was off but I didn't need them._

_I could bleed in the dark._

32XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX23

**Come With Me Now- Shackles & Chains**

I had thought that at least when I died for the day I would be free for at a brief respite. It was not to be so. As soon as I felt the day take me I closed my eyes and then opened them again in the basement of Fangtasia. This time, Sookie was the one chained before me on the ground in her old grey t-shirt and short denim cutoffs. She was pulling at the shackle around her neck and screaming at me.

"You were right," I say to her, and turn to walk away.

"Let me go!" she screams at me, crawling toward me, begging and furious. "Eric! Eric!"

"You were right," I say to her again, staying rather than leaving this time as I had before.

"And it still hurts like a mutherfucker, every time." She stopped screaming then and sat back, no longer pulling at the iron shackle around her neck. I moved toward her to release her but she stops me.

"Leave it."

"No, I can't stand to see you like this!"

"Too fucking bad. You put me here. Deal with it! I had to." I closed my eyes, shutting this and her out. Then, sighing I sat down across from her, as close as I dared to get. In her eyes I saw a curious mix of rage and pain and I felt just as helpless as I had in the grave yard when she had left me there.

"Is this a dream?" I finally ask.

"Perhaps," she said, still sitting there staring at me with reproachfully. "Perhaps it's another summoning."

"I didn't summon you, Sookie. I am dead in the cubby for the day."

"I never said _you_ summoned _me_." I looked at her sharply. If I didn't summon her then that meant… "In the cubby? At my house?" She was scrunching her face again, tilting her head, trying to figure something out. I nodded. "Why would you go there?"

"The last time I saw you there you said I could come in if I wanted." She snorted then, a hateful sound.

"And as usual, you did not want to."

"The goddamned phone was ringing. Bill was calling."

"Yes, he sure the fuck was, wasn't he?" More an accusation than a question.

"Yes, and you couldn't wait to get to him!"

"WAIT TO GET TO HIM? NOW HOLD ON A MINUTE!" she rose to her knees screaming at me, the chain rattling behind her. How did so many of our critical moments happen in this fucking basement? "You TOLD me to go to him! You SENT ME TO HIM! AND NOW IT'S MY FAULT THAT I HAD A RINGING PHONE AND YOU HAD TO FUCKING FLY AWAY? HOW THE HELL DOES THAT WORK?"

"I SENT YOU TO HIM BECAUSE IT'S WHERE YOU WANTED TO BE. IT'S WHERE YOU ALWAYS FUCKING WANTED TO BE!"

"I WANTED TO BE WITH YOU!"

"STOP SAYING THAT! YOU DON'T MEAN IT!"

"DON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT I MEAN!" I had to appreciate the irony. All this time I wanted her to want me, and now I was telling her not to say it. How did this get so fucked up? Rather than continue this pointless screaming match I sat back and forced myself to calm down. I asked the first question that came to mind.

"What do you want from me, Sookie?"

"Oh, suddenly, that matters?"

"It's always mattered to me." I expected more anger and sarcasm, but she didn't respond right away.

"I want to know when it mattered to you. I told you that for me it was from the moment I saw you. Was it when you saw me here that night fucking Yvetta? Is that when I mattered to you?" I shook my head.

"No, that was when my heart knew, but it started before I think."

"When?"

"I asked Bill if he was attached to you and you said that you were his. I said that was a pity, for me."

"I said I was his because I was scared. I had met some other vampires who thought they could just bite and fuck me against my will because they were stronger than I was. I was very attracted to you, but I was scared that you would take me away." She stopped then a minute before going on. "Of course, I was also afraid that I wanted this total stranger, and that you would not want to take me away. It was easier to not give you the chance to reject me."

"I used to wonder what would have happened if you had not allowed Compton to claim you that night."

"You don't know?"

"Oh, I ran all the possibilities, but no, in truth I do not know. Not for sure."

"You ran the possibilities. I assume that is your romantic way of saying you fantasized about it?"

"Yes."

"Tell me your favorite fantasy of that night."

"It has changed several times over the years."

"Why?"

"Because what I wanted has changed several times over the years."

"Tell me all of them. Start with the first and end with what you want to have happened that night now."

"At first, you did not declare yourself as Bill's and you left with me when we escaped the raid. I took you home with me and pleasured you all night long, tasting you slowly, showing you all the ways that I could delight a marvelous creature such as you." She swallowed and looked at me waiting for me to go on.

"After Dallas, I added to that idea, imagining that and then that you came to care for me and would have been with me in Dallas. I dreamed that you would have consoled me and shared my grief at Godric's passing. That your time with him at the end would have brought us closer and I would have been able to open up and share more than just my body with you." She bit her lip then but still did not speak.

"And now when I think of the first night I met you, I wish I had just taken you from Bill before anything horrible could have happened and I had been strong and brave enough to have met you on equal ground."

"What do you mean?"

"You were so brave that night. So bright and inquisitive. You asked your questions and pushed back when I pushed you. You were scared but putting up and good poker face. You warned me of the raid, and I imagine that while I wanted your body I would have been smart enough then to know that there is so much more to you, and that I could have taken you aside, and shown you that you could trust me, and that I was a better match for you than Compton would ever be. Because I was his Sheriff, and because of my age I could have commanded him to give you to me. But I was afraid of what you made me feel that night. I was afraid that you made me feel at all.

"I would do it all different if I could go back. I would offer myself to you and not worry of your rejection or fear that you inspired me to feel again. I would have offered you the world, Sookie Stackhouse and believed that you would have accepted it and me right then and there.

"I would give anything to go back and do that night over. To go back and do that night right." I stopped then because there was nothing more to say. I could not go back in time and I could not save her from all the things that had befallen her from her time with Compton.

"What would you have done when you found out the Queen wanted me?"

"Whatever needed to be done."

"Bill told me before he died that she sent him for me because she wanted to breed me."

"WHAT?"

"You didn't know?"

"No! I knew that she wanted you to walk in the sun after drinking your blood, but I didn't know that she planned to breed you for more of it!"

"I didn't think that you did. I thought about it a lot, if you had known and I couldn't believe you had. No matter what else had happened."

"I would never have told you that, even if I did know."

"He told me because I asked."

"I would have protected you from that knowledge. She was dead and you were safe, knowing such a horrible thing does no one any good. Gods! The fact that he went along with it makes me more glad than ever that he is dead!" I was furious. Fucking Compton, his dumbassery was a gift that just kept on giving, even from the grave.

"You knew what I was though. _You_ told Russell about me. If it wasn't the Queen how did you know?"

"Hadley."

"Hadley? How does that work?"

"So much was happening at the time. Russell was forcing Sophie Anne to marry him, and I was plotting ways to kill Russell and save Pam from the Magister and still, I had a chance to figure out why she was so fucking interested in you, and I took it."

"And then you sent Hadley to warn me to run?"

"And you ignored me, as always."

"Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"Well, I told everyone that there was no point in me running away, but the truth was I couldn't leave you."

"What do you mean?"

"You always thought I was stupid didn't you?"

"Never!"

"I knew that Bill was in trouble, and I needed to help him. That was more about me and the kind of person I want to be than it was about him, but I know that no one ever saw that." I didn't argue. I had certainly never seen it that way. "And when I got to Russell's place and heard him tell Bill he was three thousand years old I realized that you were in trouble, too. I had been paying enough attention by then to know the signs. The cool face, the tight voice, the pacing." My eyebrow went up at her spot on observations. "See, you thought I was stupid, just like everyone else." She hesitated then looking down at her hands before taking a deep breath.

"I probably could have articulated it better, but I thought we could make a plan together to get Bill out, and that would get you out, too. I could do both and not have to let you know how worried I was for you. I could do both and not lose face to you. But then you told me that I-" her breath hitched here and felt the pain in my chest again.

"I said that you meant nothing to me," I finished for her quietly. She nodded and wiped her cheeks angrily with the back of her hand.

"I had always known it of course, but to hear you just come right out with it, screaming it in my face. That was….umm, tough to hear."

"You said you hated my fucking guts."

"What was I supposed to do? Knit you a sweater? It wasn't mature, but I had to say something. So, that day I was the liar."

"We both were." She nodded, still looking down, but at least this time she did not scream denial at me when I declared my feelings for her. "You broke my heart that day, Sookie. When I looked in your eyes hearing you scream that you hated me, it was as you say, tough to hear."

"But you knew how I really felt, Eric. You had to feel how happy I was to see you. You had to know I felt something for you!"

"I felt it, but I thought it was for Bill." She was silent for a long time. Perhaps regretting the deceiving blood tie as much as I was in those moments. I had thought I was so fucking clever. I had been so fucking wrong.

"Well," she said finally, looking at me again. "If it makes you feel better, I staked him. Bill I mean. I was the one who sent him to his true death."

"How would knowing you went through that make me feel better, Sookie?"

"Revenge? Justice? Irony? Damned if I know. I just thought it might help."

"No, I know how much that must have hurt you. I am sorry that you had to go through all that alone." She shrugged a shoulder and grew quiet again.

"You're not listening to me, AGAIN!" Her eyes, round with surprise came up to meet mine. " Just like that night on porch. I wanted so much to explain. You know that Bill tried to kill me?" She nodded.

"Yes, when he told me that he had ended you, I felt like someone had kicked me in the chest. He said he did it to protect me, but I tried to tell him that you would never-" she stopped then. Her hand came up to her shackle around her throat and she smiled a tight angry little smile. "I tried to tell him that you would never hurt me."

"You were right, Sookie."

"Yeah. Sure. I wanted so fucking much for that to be true, but now sitting here shackled again, knowing that where this scene goes next is you telling Russell that he could walk in the sun if he drained me, I have to think that perhaps everyone was right. I was stupid. I am stupid. Only it wasn't for Bill like everyone thought." She sounded so hurt and angry that it was cutting me again inside. These shards though were mine, and not hers. Were they all mine?

"You remember that I kissed you, Sookie?"

"It was the most amazing moment of my life, how could I forget?" Amazing moment of her…?

"Mine, too. Right up until you ended it to demand that I explain about Bill to you."

"I lost myself in that kiss, Eric. All my protection, all my denial, all my security as soon as you pulled me close. I never wanted to stop kissing you."

"But you did." Now I sounded as sad and angry as she did.

"You told me not to pretend like I cared about you. You didn't want me to care, Eric. You didn't want me."

"No, I meant what I said, and somehow it got twisted in your mind. I didn't want you PRETENDING! I wanted it to be real, Sookie." She sniffed now, wiping another tear.

"It was real, Eric. It was so fucking real that I still get lost in that memory where I thought for a moment you might really care."

"Me, too." I wanted to reach out to her so badly. If I did would she disappear again? I decided to risk it and reach for her hand, placing it between both of mine. She dropped her head, not looking at me, and let me hold her hand for a moment before gently pulling it back.

"Why did you come to my house that night, after you escaped Bill's trap?"

"I wanted to explain why I had told Russell. It was a shitty plan, but it was the best one I had. I knew that eventually Sophie Anne would tell him of your blood and what it could do. I wanted to avenge my family and I thought I could save you, too."

"Your family?'

"Yes, Russell killed my human family with his fucking wolves before I was made vampire."

"So, you tried to burn yourself to avenge them?"

"And you." I stopped now. There was something I needed to know, too. "Why did you come for me that morning? You called me a piece of shit on your porch but you had pulled from the sun and healed me. Why?"

"You stroked my hair."

"What?"

"When you bit me, you stroked my hair. That was what I remembered when I woke up. It was something that you probably did on reflex, not even thinking but it was a…comfort. In all of that bloody mess, my stupid brain only felt your hand in my hair, like it had been when you kissed me. I woke up and all I could think of was you."

"Then why did you send me away that night?" She laughed again.

"I was so ashamed. I had tried to save Bill, to be a better person than I was and all the time he had been playing me for the fool. I was humiliated! But the worst part was that I had been humiliated in front of you, Eric!" She rose to her knees again. "I had nothing left to hide behind, and realized that there never had been anything there for me in the first place. He had never wanted ME either." She was sobbing now and I was hurting right along with her. "No one had ever wanted ME, only what I could do for them, only my blood!"

"That's not true, Sookie! I wanted you. I came that night to give you what you asked for! I came to show you why you couldn't trust Bill! I came to show you who was really wearing the black hat in this little drama of ours and you SENT ME AWAY! YOU PUNISHED ME FOR WHAT HE HAD DONE!" I was up on my knees now, too, screaming at her as she had done me, begging her with everything I was to see the fucking truth in my eyes.

"When I left that night I promised myself that I would come to you, when you had calmed down and make you see that everything I had done, I had done to save you!" She screamed then, a pain so primal in her voice that I felt my knees give way and I fell toward her needing to make it stop before I died from the pain she was feeling, the pain that I was feeling.

I meant to take her in my arms. I meant to hold her, hold her together until she had recovered enough to be able to do it for herself, but I fell forward into nothing but air. She had left me again, as she had that night. Once again she disappeared and for a moment I let myself think it might be for the best. After all, I had done nothing but hurt her again and again. Perhaps she was better off away from me after all. I had failed her so completely that I could barely fathom the depths of it. Worst of all, I had not even been able to see it, I had blinded myself to it because of my own arrogance, fear and pride.

I had been chipping away at who she was, what made me love her since the night we met, and I never even knew.


	6. The Second Interlude

**Come With Me Now- The Second Interlude**

Felipe DeCastro had been made in Andalusia in 1541. He had been a stableman for a wealthy landowner and horse breeder on the western edge of the peninsula. On a good day he cared for the master's horses. On a bad day he also cared for his master's needs. In his twenty three years as human he had learned that there was nothing the rich and privileged were denied. When he needed to escape his sometimes unbearable existence he would promise himself that one day too he would have everything he wanted, and no one and nothing would ever deny him.

He had already paid his dues. The world owed him now.

When Isabella Constantine came to look at horses one evening, she had found herself taken with handsome young stableman. When she returned the next night and made him a night walker, he had felt vindicated in his belief that the world would now be his. He had traveled with his maker through the courts of Europe and they had been an endless fountain to slake his thirst and indulge his most perverse desires.

When Isabella had released him, he had decided to seek his fortunes in the new world. He ingratiated himself to The Authority and convinced them that he was monarch material. He had demonstrated a penchant for financial matters and when the reveal had taken place they made him the King of Nevada, and in charge of the unending wealth that flowed from Las Vegas. He was in heaven.

Here there was no itch that he could not scratch and the money and the blood ran in rivers through the streets and back alleys. He owned the mayor, the police chief and controlled most of the money that came in and went out of the city. He ran drugs, prostitutes and guns with the same icy hands that held the pulse of vampire politics throughout the New World. His legendary poker face was as infamous as his talent for oral gratification, and he always seemed to know when he needed to hold back and when he needed to go all in with an accuracy that astounded his vampiric peers.

When Victor Madden presented himself to DeCastro, Felipe had taken one look at him and then locked him away for three months, chained in silver to teach him where the power was in the Sin City. Victor had been blood starved and delusional when Felipe went to him late in the night. He fed him sips of his blood and then pleasured him for hours before leaving him again. Night after night for another three months he gave him sips of his blood, supplemented with TruBlood and fucked him until Victor could think of nothing but all the ways he could please his new master. When he was released at the end of that six months Felipe owned him body and soul. He craved not only Felipe's blood, but his touch and his approval like Pavlov's well trained hounds.

Felipe had made a lap dog for eternity.

A lap dog that he then ran by alternately withholding his affection, his attention and his approval in ways that were cruel and insidious enough to strip the vampire's undead soul and leave it in tatters. Felipe only loved him when he was cruel, and thus he continued to sharpen his weapon. He taught Victor all the hidden doors that took him to the peaks of pleasure and then after Victor had taken him to the highest heights he had known since his time with Isabella he would chain in whip him with a silver cat o' nine tails, laying his skin in rows on his back and legs telling him everything he had done to displease his master. When he had bled him to the point that he could no longer heal from the whips lashes he would give him more of his blood to tighten the noose and then show him by example how he liked to be pleasured. In Victor's mind pleasure and pain became one thing, and when he rolled that into the cruelties that he enacted to please Felipe he became a truly vicious creature to behold.

Felipe would admire him endlessly, his poker face intact, while he verbally tallied the ways that Victor needed to improve. He was completely dependent on Felipe within a year of his arrival in Las Vegas. There was nothing he would not do to please his monarch.

Seeing the way the political winds were blowing after the incident with Russell Edgington, Felipe, with The Authority's, approval had begun to make inroads to human politics. When Hep-V infected vampires started roaming the countryside eating entire rural towns, Felipe had already been part of the specially appointed human vampire committee for over six months. He told them he was there be a liaison, a vampire law provider if you will that would serve as part of the joint task force to oversee vampire policing in the US. There had been some tight moments, the first being when the high ranking military official had disappeared in The Authority, presumably murdered, but never proven. Felipe had done his finest tap dancing to assure the human political machine that if indeed that was what had happened he would personally round up the vampire that had perpetrated this heinous act.

He still had connections in The Authority at the time and had known from the beginning that it was Northman who had ended the man's life. It was a piece of information he held on to until he could figure out how to make that work for him. Things had taken another turn with Compton had published that ass wipe of a book _And God Bled_, who did this Confederate asshole think he was? Still, it had served as an opiate for the masses outside the Industrial War Machine, and the humans has gone back over identifying with the plight of the long suffering oppressed race of night walkers.

Personally, he and thought it was a fucking joke, but any artery in a storm, he supposed.

He had been keeping his intel close to the vest and his distance from the Northman as he watched his rise from the ignominious swamps of backwater Louisiana to the New York Stock Exchange as he hawked NuBlood on late night television and garnered, if rumor were true, a hundred thousand a suck on the magical mystical source that was that cunt Sarah Newlin.

He wanted that money. He wanted that power. He wanted that fame, and he always, always got what he wanted.

While he pretended to help the committee for vampire policing and control he hatched his own plot to take everything the Northman had, everything he held dear. His effrontery and his success were offensive to the vampire King of Nevada, and he made it his own personal to do list to take that fucker down several pegs.

He made Victor sift through hours of footage captured in that concentration camp they had set up in Louisiana and one night Victor had come to him with the perfect information. It turned out Northman had a fairy. After breaking most of the possessions in his room venting his frustration at the Northman's unbelievable gall and downright fucking luck he realized that this could be the thing he had been looking for.

Northman's progeny indicated in her taped sessions that her maker had turned her out on account of his relationship with the unnamed fairy girl. Magical fairy flavored vagina, indeed. Immediately, he had dispatched Victor to Louisiana to find out who this ethereal creature was and to capture her if possible. When Victor returned with nothing but the name Stackhouse he had chained him in silver for two weeks. Then he had started plotting again.

He needed resources to continue the hunt that would not upset his delicate task force position. That fucking General Clinton was up his ass like a human proctologist and he had to be careful about how he did things. A long successful life in vampire and now human politics had taught him that when you can't do something for yourself, it was often beneficial to have someone else do it for you. Someone who could not be traced back to you. Someone who thought they had just as much of not more to gain than you did.

Northman and his success with NuBlood must have made some other enemies and he knew just which rock to kick over first. Motioning for Victor to bring him his phone and then forcing him to his knees as he undid his pants he sat down for two of his favorite things, vengeance and oral pleasure.

"_Konnichiwa_," he said pleasantly as Victor's head bobbed in his lap. He was so in control you would never have known he was getting the blow job of his life while he planned Eric Northman's demise in perfectly accented Japanese.


	7. The Villain

_I meant to take her in my arms. I meant to hold her, hold her together until she had recovered enough to be able to do it for herself, but I fell forward into nothing but air. She had left me again, as she had that night. Once again she disappeared and for a moment I let myself think it might be for the best. After all, I had done nothing but hurt her again and again. Perhaps she was better off away from me after all. I had failed her so completely that I could barely fathom the depths of it. Worst of all, I had not even been able to see it, I had blinded myself to it because of my own fear and my own pride._

_I had been chipping away at who she was, what made me love her since the night we met, and I never even knew._

_32XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX23_

**Come With Me Now- The Villain**

I woke from the day to the smell of my own blood tears, still in the cubby. My chest ached like I had wooden stake in it and I felt such despair that I could not bring myself to move. I lay there hearing her scream again and again in my mind and I let go of everything and sobbed my pain into the dark.

"Why do you cry?" I hadn't known she was there until she spoke. Opening my eyes I could see her there in the dark, her beautiful inner light casting dim shadows through the dusty empty room where we had been one, once, in another life.

"For all the wrongs I can never make right." She cast a look around a room that I knew she could barely see.

"I believed here."

"Believed what, Sookie?"

"That you could love me. That you did love me."

"I did. Even when I did not know who I was, I knew who you were. I did love you here, Sookie. Here and in all the places before and after." She shook her head denying my words again.

"It was a dream."

"It was a dream. It was a dream that you ended. I told you that I only wanted to be with you forever, and you told that there was no such thing as forever."

"I was talking to myself that time, too."

"I was innocent of everything then, Sookie. Your words were like the Serpent in the Garden to Eve. I did not know that there was no such thing as forever until you told me."

"Ouch." she said quietly before going on, her tone subdued and distant, as though she were back in the past and speaking to me from a distance. "It was going to end when you got your memory back. I knew that. You asked me if I would still want you when you did."

"And you hesitated, telling me only that you hoped you would. I heard the uncertainty in your voice. It hurt to know that you were unsure of me."

"It was me that I was uncertain of in that moment. The right thing to do for you was to help you get them back, but I knew that once you did you would remember that you didn't care about me at all. That you never had. I had allowed myself to take advantage of you when you were vulnerable. I had wanted you for so long, and I just couldn't stay away from you any longer. I called you back that night, I kissed you that night because I thought that for just a moment I could have what I had always wanted."

"What I had always wanted, too, Sookie. I was there, too. I wanted you, too!"

"How many chances did you have before that night, Eric, to take me like that? But you never did! I did not understand everything that you did before then, not like I do now, but you had never taken advantage of me when I was vulnerable! I did a terrible thing that I can never forgive myself for that night!"

"It wasn't like that! Stop twisting everything!"

"Twisting everything? As if I could! Never ever when you were yourself had you wanted me, never had you said you cared, and when you didn't know who you were and needed a friend I lost myself in the dream of what might have been and took advantage of you! You needed comfort and friendship and I-" she stopped, raising a hand to cover her mouth, stifling a sob.

"You what?" I pressed her, needing to see how she had seen our time together. She shook her head, still not able to speak. I rose from the bed and moved closer to her.

"Then let me tell you, Sookie. When I left that night, after being confronted with all the terrible things I had done to you and those you love I knew in my heart that I would only bring you pain. Leaving was the right thing, no matter what happened to me when I left your house. When you called me back, and opened your arms to me, I wanted to be in them so badly that nothing could have stopped me. I was trying to do the right thing, but when you called my name and I saw you on the porch waiting I knew in my heart that the right thing was you and me together. It's always been the right thing. Please tell me you can see that!" She sobbed again, but didn't answer me. I waited, needing to know that she could see what I was trying so very hard to show her.

After a few minutes she quieted and when she finally spoke she said the last thing I could ever have expected. "So, from your perspective in all this, I am the bad guy, aren't I, Eric?"

"Bad guy?"

"Yes, you have told me what you saw from your side and what you felt and how you translated all that and it ends up that I am the bad guy." She stopped a minute and then took a deep breath before going on. "You have loved me since that night in the basement with Yvetta, and I have done nothing but reject you and flaunt my love for Bill. From your perspective you gave me everything you were and I threw it on the ground and walked away every…single…time."

"Yes, and from your side, you loved me with everything you were, wanted me every night but didn't think I wanted you. From your perspective, I kept walking away from you, too." She continued.

"And the whole time, since the night we met, we have been madly, passionately, in love with each other, but were too caught up in our fear and doubt to trust it, to say it. To let ourselves feel it."

"It would seem so, yes."

"I am the villain of this story. I didn't see that coming." She let out a long uneven breath as she soaked that in.

"Things and people are rarely that simple, Sookie." She laughed then, sounding more like herself than she had since this journey had started.

"At least not when it comes to us, anyway." I moved toward her now, slowly so she would feel me coming and pulled her gently to me. She curled into my chest, her arms coming up around my back and her hands locking there, trapping me, as if I would ever want to run. I still had many questions but I let them wait as I held her close, burying my face in her hair. Weights I didn't even know I was carrying slipped off my soul and I felt as light as a feather in her arms. I should have taken more time to hold her like this, I thought.

"Yes, you should have," she said into my chest. I felt both my eyebrows go up in surprise.

"When did that happen?"

"Just now, I think."

"How?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, I suppose not," I answered, kissing the top of her head again. The last time she had been in my arms was when flew her home that night so long ago.

"I had wanted to fly with you for so long."

"I didn't know you knew I could fly."

"I saw that night in the field when you staked Russell. I would dream about being in your arms under the stars, safe and loved."

"Would you trust me to make a dream come true tonight?" Her inner light grew brighter, filling the room and making me squint against its sudden intensity. Still holding her close I floated us up out of the cubby and walked out onto her porch with her hand in mine.

She smiled at me as I led her down the steps and into the yard. I pulled her close, her back to my front, and then shot into the sky as if propelled by a canon. She squealed in fear and delight when I stopped ascending about five hundred feet up. We were standing in the sky, my arms around her and her holding on to my arms.

"Any place special?" I whispered in her ear, and felt her tremble in my arms.

"They're all special with you." I knew exactly what she meant. I kissed the top of her head, and wrapping my legs around hers, tilted us toward the ground so she could look up or down as she pleased and flew west, away from the sun. It was still hours away, but I wanted every minute I could get with her.

When she laughed I knew she understood, and better than that, she agreed. This wasn't only her dream. I had wished for it as well. Apparently, we had been wishing for the same things for a very long time.

As she had said earlier, I didn't see that coming.

I flew slowly, making the wind kiss her skin softly, like I would do if she permitted that trespass from me. Sometimes, I rose higher, and flew her through some low hanging cumulus and delighted in her girlish giggles as she reached out to capture their wispy nature. A futile effort but one that caused us both immeasurable delight none the less. Several times I rolled us over, flying with my back to the ground, her resting against me and we both looked at the stars in the sky.

If there was a perfect moment in the history of all time for me, this was it.

Sometime later we came to Caddo Lake, near the Louisiana Texas border and I landed us softly in the grass. The full moon was reflected on its surface which was calm enough to almost be a mirror. From our vantage point there appeared to be two full moons. It was breath taking. When we landed I took my leather jacket off and put it around her shoulders. Her long hair was down and she was dressed in a wispy white sleeveless gown. In the moonlight she looked more like a beautiful Fae than had ever seen her look.

This was how she looked in my dreams. When she came to me, when she called me to her, when she loved me as I had always wanted her to love me. It's funny, I thought, how we can see a person every day and never see who they truly are. She revealed herself to me this night, her true self, and she was everything I ever dreamed she could be. She gasped, reaching up to place a hand on my chest.

"You see me too beautiful," she whispered.

"Not possible. Even if you can read my mind now, you could never know what I see when I look at you."

"What do you see?"

"Everything." There was no other way to say it.

"What does that mean?" she sounded breathless, like she was running. I prayed she was running toward me.

"The sun, the moon, the reason for all things to be. I look at you and I know that while I doubt I am in their good graces, there is a higher power. You could be no accident. You are the culmination of someone's perfect plan come to fruition. You are the night and the day and," I knelt before her now, looking up with my heart out for all the world to see, "all the things that move in the light and the dark. You are hope and dream, you are destiny and despair. You are the trees that move and the wind that moves them. You. Are. Everything!" She smiled a crooked and sad little smile at me.

"I'm just a fucked up little fairy girl, looking for her own peace of mind."

"To you, maybe, but you asked me what I saw. Listen when I tell you that to me, you are everything." Her hand came up to my face then and her thumb caressed my cheek bone gently, reverently. I could see the wonder grow in her eyes as her brain processed my words. "And you get bonus points for quoting Eternal Sunshine of A Spotless Mind off the cuff." Her smile bloomed in full then and she leaned down to place a soft kiss on my forehead.

"I love your twisty brain, Eric Northman. Only you would have gotten that." It was my turn to smile. There was warmth in being recognized, in being seen, and most especially in being appreciated. We had watched that movie while stayed with her, that and endless episodes of Buffy. I cherished every one of those nights and memories and held them close in my darkest hours.

"If we could forget it all, Sookie, would you?"

"You mean like they did in the movie?" I nodded, still looking up at her.

"No, I wouldn't. Not now anyway. After all this talking, I feel like I would not want to go back and make the same mistakes again. I would rather take what we have learned and go forward now."

"Go forward? Together?" She hesitated and I felt my hopes dashed once again.

"Eric, there are things that you don't know. Things that I will not accept your offer and then reveal. Before you throw your lot in with mine you had better know all of it."

"It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter." She raised an eyebrow at me, took a deep breath and then spit out words that I would never in a million years have expected.

"After you left I received a visit from an uptight Englishman named Giles who told me that I was the Chosen One, The Slayer and that my job was to kill vampires, starting with you." She stood there, looking at me, waiting, with a straight face, for about ten seconds and then she lost it. I let her snicker. She had made her point. It was grand and romantic to say no matter what I would be there, but there were circumstances that could make my flowery words more than a little moot. She wasn't going to get off quite that easy, though.

"I knew it!" I roared. Rising and stepping back and away from her, my face contorted in a mask of jealousy and rage. "The whole time I was there when I lost my memories and we watched that show you had a secret crush on Xander! You told me I was crazy! You told me it couldn't possibly be so! But you wanted him that whole time!" For a moment she drew her hands up to her face in mock horror and then came toward me, playing along.

"No! No, Eric you couldn't be more wrong! It was never Xander! You must listen to me!"

"Oh, so you would have me believe that it was Wesley, then?" For a moment she nearly smirked, but she caught it in time.

"Oh, my stars, I never said that!" Her hands came up to her heart and her eye lids fluttered rapidly for a moment before disclosing the name of her one true love. "It was Spike!" She mock swooned then, and I caught her, turning on the way down with vampire speed so that she landed on me and I on the ground.

"SPIKE!" I sputtered, mock indignation into her face as she lay on top of me, grinning.

"Oh, yeah. I got a serious thing for blonde haired, blue eyed bad boys walking the road to redemption. Didn't you notice?" Her eyes were wandering over my face, taking me all in, memorizing me as she spoke rapid fire nonsensical gibberish about her desire for a fictional bad boy when she had a real one right here under her, needing her and wanting her so fucking badly-oh, my turn!

"I must admit that I had not noticed until recently. But, you certainly have my attention now, Miss Stackhouse." Her eyes fluttered shut. She liked me saying her name like that. Responding the soft exhalation of air that puffed out of lips in time with her fluttering eyelids I rolled us over and positioned myself between her legs, which in turn came up around my hips, caressing me lovingly, and familiarly. It had been awhile but they remembered me as I did them. I could feel it. "Miss Stackhouse," I started again, grinding into her just t a little looking for a pun about bad boys to make her laugh so I could steal a kiss-

"OW! OW! Move, move Eric, please!" I was off her in an instant, looking for what was wrong.

"Sookie, what happened? Was it me, did I-?"

"Shhhush, Eric. It's fine. I just had a rock digging into my wings." Relief flooded through me. Nothing serious then. Just a rock in her…

"Your, what, Sookie?" She stopped wriggling around in the grass then and looked up at me her eyes large and a little frightened.

"Wings?" she said in a high voice, her face scrunched again, as if she expected me to go vampire psycho at this latest turn of events.

"Uh-huh, so this would be all of it that I had better know?" She nodded and shrugged at the same time. What would I want to hear if I had just told the woman I loved with all of my being that since she had last saw me I had sprouted wings, possibly invisible wings, since I had yet to see them? What would make me feel better in situation? I thought for a moment, and then I realized exactly what I would want to hear, what would make it all better and put me at ease if my beloved were to say it to me in the face of such a revelation. Looking her deep in the eyes, my hands on her shoulders, my face completely serious, as was my mood, I said the magic words that I myself would need if this were reversed.

"Take all your clothes off and let me make it better."


	8. Faeted

_"Take all your clothes off and let me make it better."_

_32XXXXXXXXXXXXXX23_

**Come With Me Now- Faeted**

Revealing yourself in any way is a risk. It was a risk that I was still not comfortable with despite the revelations that I had beheld since the scroll had appeared to me in her yard. I had just taken a big risk and shown her how I would want to be consoled if I were in her position and when she burst into hysterical girlish giggles I would have blushed with embarrassment if my undead nature allowed for such folly.

Instead, I immediately pulled my hands from her face and moved back, disarmed to the point that I could not stop my body language from giving away my discomfort at her reaction to my attempt at intimacy. Immediately, she tried to stop giggling and moved toward me swallowing her delighted peals of laughter as best she could. I let her hug me, but I was hesitant to hug her back. Comparatively, it was a small thing when stacked against "I hate your fucking guts," but that had been a naked moment of vulnerability that I had been moved to share with her.

Her reaction put me back in my shell. A shell that I had been trying to get out of for years with her. She clung to me still snorting as she tried to contain herself. "Sorry, Eric," she said into my neck as she body still jerked from amusement against me.

"What's so funny, Sookie?" hearing my tone ended her amusement and she pulled back to look at me, her eyes large as she realized that she had made a mistake.

"Oh, no! I didn't mean-" she stopped and looked for words and after a moment not finding any, she threw herself at my lips and kissed me. As far as apologies go, it was at the top of my list and I had been around a very long time. Responding to her perfect apology I pulled her closer and opened my lips to her, that her penance might move to the next level. She melted into me, losing herself and her purpose to the passion that bubbled up between us. Her kiss took me back to our time together in her house when I didn't know who I was and she gave me everything she was. She must have seen that in my mind because she pulled back and buried her face in my chest, hiding.

"Sorry," she muttered to my pecs.

"For what?" I asked her softly.

"I lost myself again. You make me forget that things are still…not settled between us."

"They are for me." She looked up then, frowning.

"You still don't know where I have been or what I have been doing, or why I left in the first place."

"Don't care."

"Don't care?"

"Nope." She pushed away then but I refused to let her go. My hands roamed her back, soothing her and also searching for these wings that had started all this intimacy and kissing. The wispy dress she was wearing was sleeveless and low cut in the back. Easily I slipped my hands inside and searched until I found a couple of small nodules under her shoulder blades. I looked at her as I massaged them gently, waiting for the explanation that she thought would change how I felt about her. Her eyes fluttered shut in pleasure at my touch, and I realized that these nodules were very sensitive. I wanted to kiss them, lick them and see if I could make her shiver and call my name.

"Eric!" she moaned in arms.

Yes, say my name like that again, I thought to her, my head diving for her long beautiful neck, wanting her to be able to talk while I found a wordless place to adore her.

"Please, stop." She almost sounded like she meant it. I sighed and stopped. Perhaps she was right. We still needed to talk and this was leading to the land of not talking like an expressway. I stopped kissing and caressing her but I absolutely refused to let her leave my arms. I needed the illusion that I could keep her from disappearing on me again.

"Ok, Sookie. Tell me. Please." She kissed my cheek softly again, and we both sighed like love struck teens. With anyone else I would have been uncomfortable again, but I had once asked this woman for everything. I was no longer foolish enough to think that she would not require the same in return. I had to get used to her seeing me like this. She needed to see me like this. I wanted her to see what she needed to see to believe how I felt for her. Perhaps it would become easier in time. I certainly hope so!

"About a month after Bill died, Niall came back to see me."

"Niall?"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot you missed that last time. Niall is my six thousand year old fairy grandfather."

"Niall Brigant?" Her eyes grew large with surprise.

"You know him?"

"Of him. Rumors mostly."

"Like what?" her curiosity was written all over her face. I could only indulge her.

"Godric told me that he had met him once. He was hunting a vampire-"

"Warlow!" Sookie exclaimed, wriggling in my lap to better see my face.

"Warlow? Like the one from the Bible of Lilith?' She nodded.

"I did not know his name, I am not certain that Godric did either." I stopped then, thinking of the vampire that I breached Fae to drink from before going to vamp camp after Nora died. Small world.

"I was to be his bride."

"His what?" She sighed again. " I guess you didn't talk much while you were feeding, did you?"

"I knew from Bill that he was Lilith's progeny. I knew that he could day walk. I needed to be able to walk in the sun to save Pam and the others. I saw-" he stopped. Her gaze sharpened and she waited for me to go on. "I saw you come out of Fae in the cemetery and realized that you had him tucked away where I couldn't get to him without Fae blood."

"Where do you-" she stopped and then looked back at me, "Adalyn." I nodded. She snorted then shaking her head. "I wondered how you got there but how did you know where he was?"

"I came to find you, followed your scent to the cemetery and saw you come out of Fae."

"You were there and you didn't say anything?!" I shook my head, dropping it again as I remembered my thoughts.

"I smelled him on you, and you were mumbling about going out on dates and I assumed that you…you wanted him now." I didn't go into how I was sure she would never want me, but she heard it anyway.

"It was a fucked up time. I had just found out that my parents had tried to kill me when I was a kid and I needed…I needed someone. He was there, telling me that we were destined for each other for a long time and he wanted to…turn me." I stiffened.

"And you considered this?"

"I am not sure you could say I was thinking straight enough to consider anything. Bill had just turned into some kind of monster that could come into my house even without an invite. I was tired of being hunted, and you-"

"I what, Sookie?" she had tears running down her cheeks again.

"You had made it plain that you didn't care and-"

"I DIDN'T CARE?! What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I had just gone into The Authority because you asked me to. I had just staked Bill to save you. And you-" she sobbed now, but took a deep breath forcing herself to go on, "You offered me money to leave! You didn't want me here."

"I WANTED YOU SAFE!"

"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU OFFER TO COME WITH ME? DON'T YOU THINK AFTER I STAKED BILL TO SAVE YOU THAT I CARED ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU, TOO? You just wanted me gone, you didn't even say anything when I rescinded your invitation when you gave me the house back. I thought if you cared at all, that would have prompted you to say SOMETHING! ANYTHING! But…you didn't."

"You wanted me to beg!"

"No, I wanted you to tell me that you cared. That you wanted to still come and see me. That you wanted an invitation. That I was being a foolish little girl who was irrevocably changed and that I could never go back to the girl in the white dress. I wanted you to tell me that the woman I was now was far better than the girl that you had never wanted had been. I wanted you to tell me that you could accept and love the woman I was now." I was not backing down from that.

"I wanted you to tell me that you were staying for me, or tell me that you would go away with me to someplace safe! I would have taken you anywhere! I wanted you to trust me enough to let me come back and when you took my invitation to your home away it broke my fucking heart! I wanted you to be the woman you had become because she was strong and beautiful and I wanted her more than ever! I wanted her so much that I was willing to let her go because that what I thought you wanted!"

"You should have said that."

"So should you, Sookie! I made mistakes, yes, but I begged you at Bill's after we finally put Marnie in her fucking grave, I begged you to give me a chance and you told me that you didn't want me! You never gave me any indication that had changed!"

"I thought you could feel me. I had just had your blood in the cubby and I thought you would feel that I wanted you. I thought that giving you the chance to get away after you got your memories back, after I had given in and taken you when you didn't know that you didn't want me that it was the honorable thing to do! I thought you could tell that I was dying inside that night!"

"I did feel it, I thought it was for Bill. You said you didn't want either of us, so I tried to do the right thing and let you go because I respected you." She wiped her face and sighed, her heart broken. I knew the feeling. It was all done now, but it made me so angry that we had both been such colossal fucking idiots.

"And so…Warlow?" I said finally. She nodded.

"And so Warlow. I thought that I could…forget you. I thought that I could learn to be happy and then he hit me when I wouldn't do what he wanted and threatened to turn me against my will-"

"HE WHAT?"

"It's done now. Please, just let me get it out. Let me tell you now, even if I couldn't then." I locked my jaw and bit a hole in my tongue to keep my silence. She was right, it was done now. "Bill told me if I wanted to save you and everyone else I had to give Warlow what he wanted and marry him. So, again, to save you, and I guess to try and make the best of a really shitty situation I told Warlow I would marry him if he gave Bill his blood to walk in the day."

"But then he couldn't because I had already nearly drained Warlow." She nodded.

"Yep, you fucked my noble plan right up the ass." She smiled sadly then, "But at least I knew you were all right. That if you could walk in the sun you wouldn't burn the way Bill told me he had seen his vision thingy."

"So you knew I would be all right and you were going to marry Warlow anyway?"

"I am a woman of my word, Eric. I wanted to slow things down when the immediate danger to you had passed, at least that is what I said, but he knew I think. I had had his blood by then, too and he could feel me. I think he knew I loved you. It's really fucked up that he knew it and you didn't. I think that is why his dark side came out a little sooner than he intended. It's probably good that you were gone. He was six thousand, twice as old as Russell. I didn't want you burning again in the sun or whatever to try and stop what I had given my word I would do to save you."

"So what happened?"

"Niall and Jason and I killed him."

"Well, at least I helped Jason be stronger."

"Huh?"

"He was at the camp when I got there and he had been fed on. I healed him. I was thinking of you when I did it. I knew what he meant to you, so, I took care of him. I thought one of us losing a sibling was enough."

"You mean Nora?" I nodded, unable to speak too much about it even now.

"What happened?"

"She was infected with Hep-V. Bill was supposed to get Warlow's blood to help her."

"He never told me that! Eric, I would have done everything I could to help if I had known." I sighed and rested my forehead against hers.

"I am so really glad that fucker is dead." She nodded against my head, commiserating more than agreeing I thought.

"No, I am agreeing." I looked up in surprise. She shrugged.

"What he did to me even at the end was unforgiveable. He wanted me to give up my light to end him, and when I refused he asked me to stake him. It was horrible, but I felt obligated because he was infected because of me, and because of all the history between us, but enough time has passed now that I see how much damage he did to me and to my life. I hope he is happy wherever he is, but I am glad he is gone."

I never thought I would see the day. Of course, all of this had been telling me that the I could have seen the day much sooner if I had pulled my head out of my ass pretty much anywhere along the way. It was almost too much to stand, and I forced myself to turn away from things that were done and focus on moving on. I was starting to believe that she could really be mine after all and I didn't want to lose sight of that bemoaning what could never be changed.

"So, a month after Bill met the True Death, Niall came for you?" I prompted.

"Yes. He told me that I was in danger and he needed to take me some place safe. I tried to argue, but he convinced me that he knew what was best. I didn't have a lot of fight left in me. I was missing you so much, and I was trying to accept that it was over with us. So, I agreed to go with him to Fae."

"Danger from what, Sookie?"

"He didn't say and I still don't know everything, just that I had been discovered by people who would come and take me and I needed to leave. So, we left and when we arrived in Fae something that I didn't expect happened."

"Wings?"

"For a start. I had been told by my cousins, the ones that I was with when you killed Russell?" I nodded, she went on, "That my spark could fade, that I could use it all up. But when I got to Fae and spent some time there my spark started to grow. One morning I woke up with wings."

"Can I see them?" I really wanted to see them. I felt like a human child at Christmas. She smiled at my obvious excitement.

"Not here, they don't manifest in this realm." I was saddened by that. "I also gained other powers."

"Like what?" I was excited again.

"Increased light power, like what I shot you with when you got your memory back, only much stronger. I can teleport now, too, and I can come and go between this realm and Fae as I wish, I don't need a portal anymore, but having one near makes it easier. I can mask my scent, so that vampires can't smell me, and I can cast illusions. Niall taught me how." I thought about that scene in her yard last night and realized for the first time who must have put it there and left the scroll for me. The question was why?

"What else?"

"I just told you I was being hunted AGAIN, that I had sprouted wings, and that I could kill with light balls now as well as walk between the realms and you say what else?"

"I have heard nothing that changes how I feel about you in a negative way. Learning about Warlow and what you tried to do for me only reinforces for me that loving you was always the right thing for me to do." Her breath caught in her throat.

"Loving me?" she whispered, moonlight pooling with the hope in her eyes. My heart ached for her, for me, for us. We had lost so much to misunderstandings and pride.

"Loving you. I love you Miss Stackhouse," I told her in my most serious tone of voice, pushing it through my eyes, my voice and my body as I pulled her closer. "Always have, always will." I would have gone on unto the dawn with my declarations but her kiss prevented verbalization, so as I kissed her, kissing me and I thought my love to her.

I love the way you always try and do the right thing.

I love the way your faces scrunches when I tell you something you don't like.

I love that you gave me the chance to tell you I love you and finally HEARD me.

I love that you have wings and killer light balls.

I have killer balls, too, you might not remember, it's been awhile. Would you like to see them again? Perhaps they will light up for you, too?

Before she could answer that, someone cleared their throat behind us and in a flash we were standing. I placed her behind me, and then I felt her step up beside me and saw her hands light up with one of those killer light balls.

I really had never ever loved her more than I did in that moment.


	9. The Third Interlude

**Come With Me Now- The Third Interlude**

Most people would have thought Itsuko Muramoto was a slave. Sometimes she did. Born twenty-eight years ago into poverty in the small village of Mazushi, Japan she had been the fifth of ten children, hence her name, Itsuko, which translated in English as Five. Her father had sold her to the Yakuza when she was eight years old. "Too many mouths, not enough food," had been his only explanation. Katsurou Ryouichi, the head of the family, referred to with deference as _Oyabun_, had taken her under his wing and with is guidance and that of her _Kyodai_, big brothers, she had trained as an enforcer for the family Ryouichi, the largest faction of Yakuza in Japan.

She learned early to shut the fuck up and do as she was told. To do anything else led to beatings and starvation when she was small and later the punishments took other forms that were less pleasant and designed the help her remember the hierarchy of her family. Five was at the bottom of every ladder, an orphan that lived and survived at the pleasure of Oyabun Ryouichi.

One of the most painful reminders of this had been the irezumi tattoo that Oyabun Ryouichi had ordered her to receive when she was ten years old. Through the years each failure in the eyes of Oyabun had led to another irezumi session performed not with the modern needle and ink but rather with the wooden blocks and ancient tools that had been used in centuries gone past. Oyabun as a great believer in the importance of tradition. To call this method of tattooing torture was to be kind. By the time Five reached thirteen years of age she no longer made mistakes that called forth the wrath of Oyabun Ryouichi, but she had been irrevocably scarred at that point.

Rather than mourn the loss of her beauty she embraced her scars and went back to the man who had started her ink all those years ago. "I want to show on the outside what I am on the outside." He had looked at her young pubescent form and nodded solemnly, knowing exactly what she wanted. It had taken another five years to finish her tattoo but when she looked in the mirror now she knew that for any that saw they would know her true soul when they beheld her physical scarring.

She had become _Doragon Shenshi_, Dragon Warrior.

She was master of the katana, and the sai as well as being a Budokan master. Oyabun had been adamant that weapons were to be considered a luxury. The true warrior could dominate their opponent with their will and body alone. When she was not out working for the family she trained and focused on building her skills. There had been almost no time for anything else, with one exception.

Oyabun Ryouichi's son, Katsurou.

Oyabun Ryouichi had been the driving force of negotiating the creation of TruBlood, and had made a fortune manufacturing synthetic blood for vampires. Many in the family had been shocked when the great revelation had taken place, but not Five. She had known for a long time that vampires walked the earth. She had been born to them and sold to them, and had lost her one true one love Katsurou to them when their affair had been discovered. Oyabun had banished his son to America, making him the president of the Yokonomo Corporation on that continent.

Five eagerly listened for tidbits about her beloved and when she heard the Kyodai laughing over, 'Mr. Gus, Jr' her heart had ached for her long lost love. She had made him failure to his father, and now his actions had disgraced him in the eyes of their Yakuza family. She had been lost in despair when she got a call from Katsurou late one night. He had been so excited about finding a cure for the Hep-V that had poisoned the source of the family income. He was sure he could save the business and regain his honor. "My victory will be so great that Father will finally allow us to marry!" She had been so happy that night. It was the last time she had heard from him.

She knew from listening secretly to Oyabun on his calls that Katsurou had just disappeared with no trace. She was sure it had something to do with the vampire that he had made a deal with, the Northman. Her suspicions were confirmed when a year later she started seeing commercials for NuBlood. Her desire to avenge her lover became her only focus in this world as she planned and bided her time.

Finally, after years of waiting, she was rewarded one night standing guard outside Oyabun's study when overheard a phone call from a vampire in the states named Felipe DeCastro. Twenty four hours later she boarded the Yokonomo private jet with an elite team of four other Yakuza warriors. Together they made five.

She took it as a sign.


	10. Faed Into You

Before she could answer that, someone cleared their throat behind us and in a flash we were standing. I placed her behind me, and then I felt her step up beside me and saw her hands light up with one of those killer light balls.

I really had never ever loved her more than I did in that moment.

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Come With Me Now-Faed Into You

Before me stood an elegant older man in a grey suit, his long white hair wild about his head and in the pale moonlight I could see that his eyes held just a glint of humor and madness. I felt drawn to him, as though I knew him somehow, though I was sure that we had never met before. Before I could speak or move Sookie stepped in front of me, her hands still alight but held down, still ready if she needed them, but not threatening the stranger before us.

"Granddaddy Niall, what are you doing here?" She sounded a little surprised to see him, but surely no more than I. So, this is Niall Brigant, I thought and saw her head nod slightly in affirmation to my thoughts. Niall saw it, too and the corner of his mouth crooked up slightly. I doubted anyone with less than perfect vampire vision would have noticed.

"I was worried. You had been gone so long. I came to make sure you were all right." He stopped a moment and looked at her, still ready to fight and again his mouth crooked slightly. "Sookie, what is the meaning of this?" he asked, gesturing toward her hands. She did not dim her light, instead she threw her head back and held it high as she stepped back closer to me.

"I know you don't like vampires, but Eric is here under my protection. I won't let you hurt him."

"Hurt him? Child, what makes you think I want to hurt your vampire?"

"You told me that you didn't think they were good enough for me." So, Granddaddy Niall did not approve of vampires? And she was ready to fight for me? I felt elated and terrified for us at the same time. She would fight for me, but against an ancient adversary like her Grandfather she had no chance in hell of winning. Fuck, I probably didn't either. I was kissing her just a moment ago and now we were under attack. Couldn't a Viking get a fucking break?

"No, child." He said gently, shaking his head. "I told you that I did not like Compton for you. I said nothing about the Viking." From behind her I saw her tilt her head to side, processing and noticed the light in her hands growing dimmer as she slowly concluded that he was no threat to me.

"So, you approve of Eric?" she asked him, doubt still very obvious in her tone, and in her hands which had not completely gone out.

"How do you think he found you?"

"Oh!" she let out a little gasp and turned to me. I had suspected but not knew, so I shrugged and raised my eyebrows at her, telling her as much with my thoughts. She smiled slightly and turned back to Niall. "I see. May I ask why?"

"I told you, Sookie, when I told you that I didn't like Compton for you that I watched over you all the time. That I saw everything you did and that was done to you, and I have never seen this one do anything but love you as best he could." His words, in addition to all the ones I had fired at her tonight about how wrong she had seen things hit their target dead center and she whimpered softly and instinctively stepped back into my body, making my arms come up around her as surely as if she had commanded it. I pulled her close and gently kissed the top of her head.

"Be soft," I said to her Grandfather, not disrespectfully, but firmly enough to let him know that pain he gave her was also pain he gave me.

"You see?" Niall asked, gesturing to us, our actions having just proved his words better than any long drawn out argument ever could have.

"Yes," she said softly and brought her now dim hands up to cover mine as they held her close. He nodded, his smile bursting forth now.

"Good! You two don't make it easy, do you?"

"Apparently not," she said her tone filled with sarcasm and a smidge of laughter. I would have sounded the same, and felt a great relief that finally we were on the same page for what could just be the first time ever. Changing her focus she shifted back to why he was here.

"It's not safe for you to be in this realm for, too long. I came to bring you home." I held her tighter and challenged him over his head.

"I can protect her!" I said fiercely, my fangs coming down in my passion.

"You don't understand, neither of you is safe here right now." Her head tilted again against my chest.

"You mean Eric is coming, too? How?"

"Remember that Compton breached Fae by drinking your blood? And that once the Viking did as well, when he drank from a young fairy?" She nodded bobbing her head against my chest. "Well, we'll give him some more and bring him over!"

"And he'll be safe there? He won't burn? Or-"

"He'll be safer there than he is here right now."

"What the hell is going on?" I demanded, needing to know what this looming danger was that was forcing us to retreat to another realm for safety.

"Once we are in Fae I will explain it all to you. For now, come vampire and drink from me."

"From you?!" Sookie sounded shocked, which matched my feelings as well.

"To keep him there will require a substantial amount of fairy blood. I will donate some and then I will depart and leave you two to finish so that you can meet me there." Sookie turned her head to look at me. Is it safe? I asked her with my mind and she nodded her head imperceptibly, stepping away, but taking my hand in hers. Together we walked toward the ancient fairy and I took his wrist, looking at him one last time to make sure he was certain.

I am certain, I heard in my mind and saw him smile again. He could project his thoughts to me. Taking his hand gently in my large one I bit into his wrist and felt his warm blood cross my tongue. It was unlike anything I had ever had before. Better than Sookie's fairy godmother, but not better than Sookie. Nothing had ever tasted better Sookie to me. But after a few deep gulps I found just the faintest trace of her in his blood.

She is my kin, he said to me in my mind as I took several more deep pulls from him, feeling my head start to swim with intoxication that could only be achieved by my kind tasting his. "That's enough," he said aloud and I licked his wrist as courtesy to stop the bleeding and then stepped back from him. It was difficult to stop, but I found the strength from the tiny hand that had remained in mine as I had fed.

"Eric," her soft voice called to me, asking without asking if I was all right? I looked down at her through my drunken haze and smiled. I wanted to run and fly like I had the last time I had fairy blood. I wanted to play!

"Heeeeey!" I said in my best flirtatious voice. She was so fucking beautiful! The way the moonlight shone on her hair and she was smiling at me!

"Will you be all right with him?" Niall asked her. She nodded, not looking away from me.

"Yeah, this time if he runs away I can pop after him, rather than running."

"Imnotrunningaway!" I declared, hearing myself slur my words. She giggled softly and I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to kiss her now!

"I will leave you then," I heard someone say distantly as I brought my hands up to her face and leaned down to claim her lips as mine. She melted into me and kissed me back. I wanted to whoop with joy! But that would have meant that I would have had to stop kissing her. Not gonna happen! I deepened the kiss and pulled her closer to me, my body starting to take over. Sometime, a hour, a day a week later, she pulled back from me and placed her forehead against mine.

"Fuck, you know how to kiss." I giggled. Yes, I'd blame the fairy blood high later, but sure as shit, I giggled. "You need to drink now, Eric, so we can go."

"I don't want to do it this way. I want-" I stopped.

"You want what?" she asked breathlessly.

"I want you to feel again, too. I want to be inside you when I taste you again. I want to be one with you again?" I was asking, I was telling, I was taking a chance and baring soul to her again.

"Why now, Eric?" her tone was filled with anguish that my intoxicated brain could not understand.

"It's not NOW, it's what I've always wanted!" I told her. "Do you still not understand, Sookie?" She hesitated a moment, but only a moment. A moment that might have killed me in standard vampire time, but one I barely registered in intoxicated vampire time.

"I understand," she whispered, her gaze locking with mine. "Yes," she said, and before I could speak, she said, "But when we get to Fae. I want to take my time, now that I understand. Now that I know. Is that all right?"

"Yes!" She said yes. Wait, was that too easy? I captured her face, needing more than anything else to make sure she understood what I was asking and what she was agreeing to. "You mean that you will be mine at last?"

"Yes."

"YES!" I jumped about ten feet in the air and floated down to stand in front of her. She was laughing and I wished I could feel her joy. Soon, I told myself.

"Soon," she echoed, her word was her bond, she promised. "Yes, I am a woman of word, Eric. When we get to Fae and we talk to Niall and find out what has him so worried, I will be yours."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" I asked pulling her close to me and nuzzling her neck. She gasped, and I felt her hard nipples against my chest. I remembered her wings and her reaction when I had caressed her there before. I sat down on the ground and pulled her onto my lap, determined to make the most of this, even if we had to cut it much, much shorter than I would have liked. Her legs slid around my hips, placing her hot center, that her flimsy gown did nothing to shield me from, right where I needed her to be. She tilted her head, her long blonde hair sliding to the other side. My arms came around her, my long fingers finding the nubs below her shoulders, while I pressed her chest to mine and I kissed her neck softly.

The combination of sensations had her grinding in my lap, and for just a moment I looked at her, she was a goddess in the moonlight. It felt like my chest would burst I felt so much for her in that moment. Wanting her to feel it too, I massaged her wing nubs and returned to her neck while rocking my hips into hers. She moaned and tried to get closer to me, and I knew that for sure what I had not seen before. This woman loved me. This woman, Sookie Stackhouse, loved me. It was almost too much. When she pushed down on me, riding my erection through our clothes my fangs slipped into her neck just as I caressed her back and as the first taste of her in so very long met my taste buds she came in my arms, calling my name like she was worshiping me.

"I am!" she got out in between moans and pants that pushed me over the edge and I came with her pulling her down on me and I sucked deeply at her neck. For a moment I thought of the feeling I had had when we were flying and knew that this was just another way to fly with her. Another way to see the stars.

"I love so much, Eric," she whispered in my ear, granting my fondest wish of a lifetime. It had been a long time coming, but it was everything I ever thought it would be.

She was everything I ever thought she could be. She was mine! I sucked harder at her neck, growing hard again, and slipping further into blissful intoxication in her arms. She shivered and leaned into me sucking on my neck where it met my shoulder. I wanted so much to feel her bite and then the euphoric sensation that I got when I felt me traveling into all her secret places. She moaned softly and finally pulled back, placing her hand gently on the back of my head. I took her queue and pulled back, too, lingering over her wounds, licking them slowly and sensuously not wanting to let her go.

"You don't have to let me go. We are going together, remember?" she whispered to me and I growled deep in my chest. Damned right, we are going together! I am not losing you again! She smiled as she looked up into my eyes. The world shimmered before me now, the fairy blood making the world glow. Sober I had perfect vision, intoxicated on Sookie the world looked just as sharp but now it had a cast of beauty that I had never noticed before. The dew drops on the grass around us seemed to glow in the moonlight. The moon itself seemed to pulse with magic. It was absolutely amazing that she could show me a world I had seen every night for a thousand years and make it seem entirely new!

"Ready?" she asked me sounding breathless. I nodded and saw her light grow brighter. I held on for the ride.

I don't know what I was expecting, but when I looked around for the first time and saw that we had appeared in a beautiful garden that had the same glow as the world we had left behind I took a deep breath and thought Godric would have loved this place. It was midday here and it rushed to me that once again my love had given me the sun. The breath I took brought a scent to me that I could only be described as heaven. This time my mind went to Nora, and her comment in Sookie's living room, "You smell like something once dreamed of." She would have loved it here, too. There was a spike in my heart at their loss from my life, but right behind that I had to wonder if I would be here now if they had not perished. I had strategized long enough to know that it was often not the event itself but rather the ones that led up to it that created possibilities and opportunities.

"Eric?" She was still in my lap, her body wrapped around mine, and from the concern on her face, she could tell I was sad. I remembered from my human days that being drunk could lead to near mad joy or soul tearing despair. I wanted more of the former. There had been too much of the latter for both Sookie and myself. Rather than open up old wounds for us I leaned down and kissed her, this time with the tenderness that I felt in my heart. I was slowly learning to open up to her. Slowly learning to jump and believe that she would catch me.

She did not disappoint me. She kept me right there, safe in her arms while I showed her my soul. Who knew I could love her more? Finally, I ended the kiss and slowly stood, pulling her with me. I was swaying on my feet and put my arm around her shoulder to steady myself. I took a longer look around and saw in the distance a huge white palace next to a river. "Is that where we are going?"

"Yes, that is Niall's palace."

"And you have been here for three years?" I looked down at her, wondering what she had done here all this time.

"Training. Endless days and nights of training." She made it sound dreary, but the smile that was playing hide and seek on her face didn't quite sell it. I raised an eyebrow. "Well, there was the occasional party or two as well?"

"Party?" She nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes, fairies love to dance and eat and celebrate the joy of life! I had no idea what it was to give yourself over to that so completely." A shadow crossed her face.

"What is it, Sookie?"

"They always tried to get me to join in, but I wasn't able to let go."

"Let go of what?" Her eyes came up to mine and I could see that she was fighting not to cry.

"You. I missed you, so much, and I was so angry and hurt that I couldn't let it go." Before I could speak and satisfy my instinct to comfort her she went on, "But the anger was masking the truth. Somehow, though I didn't think you had ever cared, and we had only been close when the witch took your memory, I knew that what was missing for me was you, and the fact that I couldn't figure how to love or not love you. I was stuck in limbo."

"Until now?" I asked hopefully, my fucking heart on my sleeve again.

"Until now." My eyebrow went back down and I started to think that it might be all right to leave that little broken fucker right out there on my sleeve, all the better for her to love it and kiss it better.

"Come on," she said, Niall will be waiting." Before we could take a step he cleared his throat behind us again, and we turned to once again face the fairy prince.

"Welcome," he said, nodding to me slightly. Still leaning on Sookie I returned the acknowledgement best I could. "I have brought you here because you are being hunted in the human realm. Both of you." He waved his hand and between us a window opened up showing first a human male I didn't recognize. He was dressed in military garb and I felt my insides shift. No run in I had had with the military had ever ended well. The image changed and I realized he was at the vampire camp that Burrell had run. I watched as he and a bunch of soldiers packed everything up and cleaned out the entire place. Fucking Compton had just left that shit there? Had he been too busy writing his fucking memoirs to realize how dangerous it would be for humans to find that information? Fucking Compton had been dead for three years and he could still harsh my buzz. Yes, you were still an asshole, Bill.

"And somehow those events led to these." The scene shifted again, and I saw Felipe DeCastro, King of Nevada and his sycophant lackey Victor Madden sitting down and talking with the military man. "The human's name is Randolph Clinton, General Randolph Clinton, to be precise." My skin crawled as I watched DeCastro and Madden work with Clinton and his men to continue the insidious work that had begun in Louisiana. How the fuck had this gone on and I missed it? "I assume you know the vampires?" I nodded, thinking the information to Sookie so that she would be able to keep up as we moved forward. Even with my lovely foggy brain I saw the need now for haste.

"And that in turn," Niall continued, "Has led to this." Now I could see a beautiful Japanese woman who was talking to DeCastro and Madden. "She was the lover of the former president of the Yokonomo Corporation." He stopped there but I didn't. I killed him, I thought to Sookie. He was the one in Fangtasia when you followed me back to ask for my help with Bill. She nodded perhaps remembering the morning I had pretended to glamour her. Recalling the dreamy expression on her face as I told her to stop begging me to fuck her. As if, but she had surprised me that morning. It was the first time she had done the smart thing and listened to her brain rather than her heart.

"I was scared for you," she whispered to me, keeping her eyes on the magic window that was showing us why we needed to hide in another realm for safety. I pulled her closer to my side, glad that she couldn't feel how scared I was for us both in that moment. Niall closed the window and stood before us, he looked concerned as well.

"I have spies in place, working to determine how much they know about Sookie and the Fae. This alliance is disturbing and I don't know yet what they plan for her or us. Unfortunately, I already know they plan to assassinate you, Viking." I thought a moment and then some dots came together for me.

"The military have access to all the information that was left behind," that I left behind, I cursed myself for not burning that fucking place to the ground. It was then that I felt Sookie squeeze me tighter. I kept forgetting when I went off on my own internal diatribes that they had an audience now. Perhaps, this would have worked out much better if she had always been able to hear when I was bullshitting. Tabling that for later, I turned back to Niall, "And it stands to reason that they must have discovered the existence of Sookie and the Fae from what was left there." Niall was nodding, he had already ascertained as much.

"Yes, this vampire DeCastro has a bone to pick with you, and he thinks the most direct path to you is through my granddaughter." I growled then, I would rip out his fucking spine before he laid a hand on her! "Yes, I believe you would have, if you had known, but I couldn't take the chance that you would come for her in time. So, I brought her here."

"Why the illusion?" Seeing her with someone else, pregnant with his child, cutting me out of her life entirely had been devastating.

"I had to know if you were serious." Despite the pain, I had to appreciate the logic and thought that had gone into his plan. If indeed she was my beloved, nothing would have kept me from her side, except her of course, and even that hadn't always worked. I had worked to stay in her life harder than I had ever worked at anything even when she shoving against me with all her might. She pulled me closer to her body, offering comfort and reassurance. It felt really fucking good, and I was struck by the delicious difference between being pushed and being pulled.

"I understand." There was nothing else to say about that. Niall looked at me long and hard and then smiled again, looking more like a benevolent grandfather here in the day than he did a madman in the moonlight.

"You are safe here for now, after all, who would look for a vampire in Fae?" There was the madman again. I still felt like I knew him from somewhere. It was niggling at the back of mind but I couldn't quite place it. "But we must make sure that none know who and what you are except for Sookie." He waved his hands and I felt my flesh tingle. I looked down and saw my black jeans and leather replaced with something much more…relaxed. I was wearing a blue shirt that shimmered in the light reflecting all the colors of the sky, and dark blue trousers. I glanced at Sookie and saw that she had changed to sky colors as well and was now wearing a frilly gray dress. She looked incredible. Sky Fae, I thought, and she and Niall smiled at me, looking for the first time remarkably like family to my old eyes.

"Much better!" Niall said, clapping excitedly, applauding his handiwork. I felt my buzz come back a little, his joy somehow telegraphing to me, perhaps from his blood that currently ran through my veins. He winked at me, Sookie missing the byplay as she twirled in her new dress. She took my breath away again. "Now you're dressed for a party!"

"Party? Now? What's the occasion?" He rolled his eyes and moved toward us.

"Life! And there is no better time to have a party, Viking, unless of course it is morning, evening or night. In Fae we celebrate life and joy whenever we can. Come now, celebrate with us!" Next thing I knew we were in the middle of party. The other fairies around us were dancing and laughing and again, I felt my buzz go up a notch. It did indeed seem that Fae blood could still celebrate even in my veins. I should have been thinking about a million things given what I had just learned, but for the moment we were safe, and I felt so unbelievably fucking good. I let it drift away and of their own accord my long limbs joined into the reverie around me. I danced! I danced with Niall and Sookie and in and out of circles of fairies who, too, looked to be high on joy and life. I saw the others hug Sookie and express their joy that finally she was able to join them.

I did that, I thought, and my joy grew and I danced and laughed that much harder. Finally, sometime later Niall pulled us to him in an embrace that reminded of my maker and kissed us both on cheek. "I have made a special place for you tonight, children. Enjoy the night! Enjoy each other!" I saw something pass between him and Sookie, then he popped away. Sookie and I fell into each other, laughing. Me because I was still stoned but not just on blood. I had breathed in life and it suited me. Sookie, I didn't know why Sookie looked so happy, but I hoped that it was me, at least a little.

The music shifted again and I heard a fairy exclaim loudly, "I LOVE ENRIQUE IGLESIAS! I didn't know who he was but the sexy fast paced Latin beat filled the air and Sookie started to move in time to the music. I stopped, star struck. There was no other word for it. She moved her body sensuously as Enrique sang the words of my heart. He must be a telepathic fairy, too, was my last coherent thought before her body and movements stripped my mind away.

You look at me

And girl you take me to another place

Got me feeling like I'm flying, like I'm outer space

Something 'bout your body says 'come and take me'

Got me begging, got me hoping that the night don't stop

(Bailando, bailando, bailando, bailando)

Tu cuerpo y el mio llenando el vacío

Subiendo y bajando (subiendo y bajando)

(Bailando, bailando, bailando, bailando)

Ese fuego por dentro me va enloqueciendo

Me va saturando

Girl I like the way you move

Come and show me what to do

People tell me that you want me

Girl you got nothing to lose

I can't wait no more

(ya no puedo mas)

I can't wait no more

(ya no puedo mas)

I wanna be contigo

And live contigo, and dance contigo

Wanna have contigo una noche loca

Ay besar tu boca

I wanna be contigo

And live contigo, and dance contigo

Para dar contigo una noche loca

Con tremenda loca

I look at you and it feels like paradise

When you got me spinning, got me crazy

Got me hypnotized

I need your love, I need you closer

Keep me begging, keep me hoping that the night don't stop

Sookie danced around me, twirling her skirt in her hands, stepping in perfect tune to music and I watched until she stepped up to me. "It's all about you," she said breathless, her eyes glowing. She pulled me to her and we started moving together to the music, back and forth, close and far and I was lost in her eyes giving myself over to the beat, to her, to the moment.

Fuck, and I had thought I was flying before! I made a note to find this Iglesias man and send him a new Corvette to show my thanks for the gift of his music. She laughed and pressed herself to my chest still shimmying against me, taking my thoughts away from Latin lovers and putting them all on my lover. I twirled her then, holding our hands up so she could spin for me and caught her with a searing kiss. She melted into me, rubbing her chest against mine and I heard her growl with desire. So fucking sexy! The song came to an end and she looked up at me with lightening in her eyes, "You ready to blow this pop stand?" Her words conjured a thousand images that blew through me starting a fire that only she could control.

"Fuck, yes!" she laughed again, her head falling back, braced by my arm around her, her long hair nearly dragging the ground as she lit up and took us away into the magical living realm of Fae.

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Special thanks to Enrique Iglesias - Bailando (Spanglish) Lyrics | MetroLyrics for giving our lovers a beat that started a fire that will burn for chapters to come across worlds. I added the video on my wordpress site, you can check it out there or on youtube. Thanks for reading!


	11. Signs & Wonders

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_"You ready to blow this pop stand?" Her words conjured a thousand images that blew through me starting a fire that only she could control._

_"Fuck, yes!" she laughed again, her head falling back, braced by my arm around her, her long hair nearly dragging the ground as she lit up and took us away into the magical living realm of Fae._

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******Come With Me Now- Signs and Wonders**

We landed still entangled and laughing on the edge of the forest alongside Niall's beautiful white palace. She took my hand and started pulling me toward the entrance. I was still buzzed and feeling up for anything this world or any other might throw at us. As soon as we were inside the cover of the forest she stopped and turned to me. "You still wanna see my wings, cowboy?" Oh, I liked that!

"Yes!" It was Christmas again when she stepped back and shimmered before me, her clothes disappearing and revealing her form to me. Slowly, starting at her feet I soaked in the vision before me. She was older now than when last I had seen her, more fleshed out, and yet more comfortable in her own body than she had been at twenty-five when last I had beheld her. While being incredibly soft and feminine still, her muscles were toned and firm, from the training she mentioned, perhaps. She had finished baking, as her hero Buffy might say. My Sookie Cookie had grown into herself. Her curves were dangerous and seductive, hips rounder, calling to my hands, making my palms do the impossible and itch to touch her. Her breasts were fuller, heavier as well and my mouth started to salivate. She was tearing me apart and she was just standing there, with a shy smile on her face!

My gaze took in her shoulders and I saw that she now had a green tattoo on her left shoulder of intertwining Celtic like symbols, it disappeared over her shoulder and it was there that I beheld her luminous wings for the first time. They were so delicate in appearance that a breeze might tear them. Iridescent in color and thin enough to see through I wanted to touch them almost as much as I wanted to taste her ink with my tongue. Before I realized it I had closed the distance between us and my hand was poised to do just that. I stopped, looking into her eyes. "May I?" She nodded, eyes large in anticipation of my reaction.

With the lightest of touches I ran my finger along the edge of her delicate wing. She shivered and I saw her nipples harden. My body hardened, too and I couldn't stop my fangs coming down. A soft growl was emanating from my chest. How strange we would have looked to an outsider in that moment. It was no doubt a fantasy artist's wet dream. A Fairy and her Night Beast gazing at each other with longing in a sun dappled forest. It had been centuries since I had painted, but I could see this image so clearly in my mind that I knew one day I would a paint it large and in living color that did justice to her beauty.

"Say somethin'," she whispered.

"Don't you know? Can't you hear me?" I asked sounding breathless.

"I need you to tell me, please."

"Words fail me in the face of your beauty. I am struck silent." She smirked, clearly amused.

"You being Eric Northman and all, you being at a loss for words probably says more than anything else actually could." I growled again, and entranced reached out to touch her again with my finger tip. Her wing felt as soft as it looked. Slowly, I leaned in to kiss it reverently. This new part of her was as seductive as the rest. Had she not already held my heart and soul she would have taken them in that moment with no fight from me. I was totally and irrevocably hers. My hand moved of its own volition down to her markings.

"Sky Tribe markings," she whispered her eyes fluttering closed at my touch.

"Breathtaking," I managed as I traced their intricate patterns and wondered at their meaning. I leaned down and kissed them, too. Soft butterfly kisses on her tribal tattoos.

"They came with the wings, just 'Poof, you're a Sky Fae'."

Pulling back slightly to free my lips from their adorations I said, "Poof, you're my wife." My words jerked her from the bliss of my touch and she looked at me with wide eyes.

"Is that what you call a proposal, Eric Northman?" Fascinating. Under the wings and the ink she was still my proper Southern Belle. I smiled at finding this warm familiarity in the new woman who stood before me. _This_ Sookie I danced with before, I knew the steps. I hoped we could incorporate some new ones as well.

"No. That's what I call stating a fact." She tilted her head listening and processing. No other could be my match, I thought to her.

"Is that what you meant when you bought my house, and told me that I was yours?" I paused then, considering.

"Yes. I said it poorly, but yes, that is what I meant in my heart."

"Well, at least your approach is improving. If you practice some more you might get it right." A devilish smile appeared on her face, "If you can catch me, I'll let you practice some more." She turned and popped away then, about two hundred yards further into the forest and I moved like she pulled me on a string to her side. The act of chasing her was intoxicating, calling to the predator that lurked in me as well as the lover seeking his beloved. She let me catch her there, and looked up at me. "Ask me again."

"You told me you loved me from the moment you saw me. Show me."

"Better." She popped another hundred yards into the forest and waited. Again, I vamped to her side.

"Ask me again." Oh, this was infuriating and…perfect. If she made it too easy she wouldn't be Sookie, and I, well I wouldn't love her with everything I was. I didn't understand it, but this worked for me. It was beyond logic and reason. It was her slapping my face, and rather than evoking my rage she stirred my passion. I could not predict Sookie. She moved in mysterious ways, and while I couldn't see her patterns I knew that forever would not be long enough to try and decipher her. The best part was…

"The best part of you, of us, Sookie, is that even if I never understand you and this thing between us, I accept you as you are. I accept the anachronistic Southern Belle, the fiery Fairy Sookie, the Winged Warrior of the Sky and I ask you now, to do the same for me. Be my wife, for now, for as long as we have, for forever if we are lucky. Be mine." A tear slipped down her cheek and the sun was in her smile.

"Perfect," she said softly. "Yes, a forever of yes, always yes. Eric, even if I never understand you and this thing between us, I accept you as you are. I accept the anachronistic Viking, the dark raging beast in your heart that gentles itself only for me, the vampire lover of my dreams. Be my husband, for now, for as long as we have, for forever if we are lucky. Be mine."

"Yes, a forever of yes, always yes, my Sookie, my wife." I kissed her then, softly, pulling her to me needing to feel her, to reassure myself that I was not dreaming again, though even my dreams had never been this good. I felt her teleport us again and when I opened my eyes I looked up and beheld a strange and wondrous thing. A bed. A bed in a tree. A bed in a tree and I had a naked Sookie in my arms. A naked Sookie who was now the wife of my heart.

Definitely a dream.

Let me never wake up, I thought as I lifted us off the ground gently and floated up to the bed. It was then that I remembered Niall's words to us. _I have made a special place for you tonight, children. Enjoy the night! Enjoy each other! _ "Looks like I have won over the in-laws." She giggled as I lay her gently on the bed. She raised up slightly and I heard a gentle whooshing sound when her wings disappeared. I was disappointed that she hid them from me. They were a part of her, and I never wanted her to hide herself from me. She heard me and suddenly they were back.

"OK," she said, smiling at me, "But I want to see you, too." I raised an eyebrow not understanding. Gently, she touched my lips. "Your fangs. They are a part of you, husband. We go into this with fangs and wings flashing! Together!"

"Together!" I swore, dropping fang and pushing back the growing certainty that this absolutely must be a fucking dream. It just didn't get this good. It just didn't.

"Stop! We're gonna make it this good!" Her eyes were fierce and I could not help but believe. Slowly, she slid her leg over my body, and I fell back on to the bed, hypnotized by the way the light flickered through her wings. She pulled my attention back to her as I felt her small hands slowly start unbuttoning the shirt that Niall had given me. One…by…one, until she slowly pushed it back, opening it like I was a present. She stared down at my chest for a long moment and then zeroed in on the dimple between my pecs, running her tongue softly through the shallow valley of my flesh. "Mmmmmm," her sounds making me writhe underneath her, my hands came up to the back of her head to pull her closer, to pull her up, to touch her. I had to touch her.

My fingers knew what to do, they wound themselves in her hair and ran through it like a comb. They followed her as she moved up slowly to my neck…my chin, another shallow valley she kissed and moved on to my cheeks. Leaving her hair, my hands went to her shoulders and I pulled her to me. Gently, she kissed my eyelids. "I dreamed of this," she breathed across my face.

"Tell me."

"I dreamed that in Dallas you let me console you with my kisses, my body, like this. I dreamed you let me show you all the love I had in my heart for you."

"It was my dream, too. Make that dream come true for both of us, Sookie." Her eyes were glazed with passion and she moved down my body continuing to slowly unwrap me, Snap went the button, zip went the zipper and when I raised slightly to allow her to remove the dark blue trousers the sound of sliding material was drowned out by her moan. I looked and saw her lick her lips as she stared at my arousal. I followed her gaze and saw a small drop of fluid form on the tip. In that second the smell of her arousal hit me full on and the drop became a dribble as a sharp pain hit me in my lower stomach. I was aching with need for her and consoled only with knowing that she felt the same. "Do with me as you will, wife. I am yours." My words freed her and she leaned down to take just the barest tip of me into her sweet warm lips, using her tongue there as she had on my chest moments before. I jerked and felt my body push out more dribbles to satisfy her. Swirling her tongue and moaning at the taste of me, she pushed her head down taking more of me into the wet heat of mouth. I know I screamed her name then through the trees of Fae, but I didn't hear it. The spell that she had woven around us was impenetrable to all but her touch on my body.

This was new. I had been too eager for her to dally with such pleasure when last I had been her lover. A thousand years of control and experience had been denied me when last I loved this woman. I would make up for that now, I would be the consummate lover and not the eager virgin that had taken her in the woods and in all the rooms of her house with inexperience and unbridled zeal. I knew that I had satisfied her then, but there was so much more I could have offered if I had been in possession of my memories. Slowly, she slid up my shaft, increasing the suction to the point that my vision narrowed into a small tunnel as the blood rushed from my brain to my cock. She popped her lips when she released me.

"I hadn't thought of it like that," she said.

"Like what?" I ground out through a locked jaw, wanting to hear what she had to say and wanting her to quit talking at the same time.

"That you were a virgin with me." My eyes met hers.

"I was. I had no memory of any other. You were my first lover, Sookie." A beautiful rosy hue rose to her cheeks and she dropped her gaze.

"If I had realized that, I would have taken more care with you in our time. I feel foolish to not have realized." My physical need took a back seat to her emotional need.

"You were perfect, Sookie. You were kind and passionate and you let me love you in all the imaginative ways my innocent mind could conceive. When I offered to be one with you, it was because I knew that you were everything I could ever want or need. I didn't know anything else at all, but I knew that! I _know_ that!" Her gaze came up and I pulled her to me, sliding her up, a leg on each side of me. I sat up to meet her halfway. Her hands went to my face and she looked at me so intensely it was all I could do not to look away.

"You were perfect, too, Eric. So good that I missed out on realizing that you didn't remember any other lovers before me. It makes-" she stopped a minute and I waited for her to find the words she needed. "It makes it all the more amazing that you just knew how to please me and that everything you did was everything I could have dreamed of. It's like…"

"I was made for you?"

"Yes, like you were made for me." She kissed me then and I felt another weight left. Somewhere, I had been hanging on to the notion that perhaps if I had been a better lover she would have accepted me and my bond back then. She sobbed into my mouth, "Please stop," she whispered against my lips. "It cuts me in my soul to know that I have hurt you like this. Please, I can't-" this time I cut her off with my fierce kiss. I would drink her pain and take it all on myself, I would do whatever needed to be done to free of her the weights that she carried from our dark times apart. I would fight all her demons and set her free at last if she would let me.

Moving to her neck I whispered between kisses, "You are the most amazing woman I have ever known. It was hell to get to this moment with you but I wouldn't change anything, not a single moment of it and risk losing what we have now!" I moved my hand down to wet core of her and touched her there, making her moan in my ear. "Let go, my love. Let me take away your pain." I slid one of my long fingers inside her slowly, looking for the spot that would take her away from the dark and into the light. I knew I found it when she threw her head back and screamed my name like a prayer, a revelation. "Yes, like that!" I pulled her lips back down to mine and swallowed her agony and her ecstasy.

This is what a husband does, Sookie. I thought to her. He eases your body and he heals your soul. He takes your burdens and shares them or makes them his if she needs time to heal before she can shoulder them. You are my wife! Let me take you pain away! I slid another finger into her and focused on that sacred spot inside her, until she came apart in my arms, tears on her face as she declared her love for me in sounds that echoed in the trees and through my ancient body like a firestorm.

"You are mine!" I told her fiercely, fangs all the way down now, I was burning for her and with her.

"Yours," she echoed and pulled my head to her neck. She raised her body and my fingers slipped out of her wetness allowing her to line up my aching cock with her center. "Do with me as you will, husband," she echoed me as she slowly let me inside her tight, hot channel. It felt like a piece of me was being pulled out as my cock pushed into her. Once she had herself fully seated on me, she squeezed down, and it was her turn to swallow my ecstasy. She started moving slowly, my hands coming to her hips of their own volition, to hold on more than guide.

"This is what a wife does, Eric. She takes her husband into her body, into her very soul and nourishes him in mind, body and spirit. She gives herself over completely to his needs, his desires because in fulfilling him, she fulfills herself. A good husband can be trusted with this gift of a soul, and you are a good husband, my love. You give much more than you ask in return and you keep me safe even when I can't do it for myself. Let me take _your_ pain away." I had to close my eyes and hide from the intensity of her words and the affect they had on my body. She had just unmoored the very ties of my being. I was floating as she moved on me, squeezing tight, working my body to a release that felt more spiritual than physical. I was afraid to go on, and afraid to stop, on the edge of something that would forever save or damn me and I knew not which. "It's OK," she whispered to me then. "I've got you. I won't let go again!"

She started moving faster, making me respond by thrusting up to meet her as she came down on me. The bed was suspended on ropes in the tree and it started to swing gently from our movements. It felt like the world was moving beneath me, making the whole experience even more ethereal. Instinctively, to hold on all the better I buried my face in her neck and licked her there, letting her know I was going to bite. Her hand came up to the back of my head as she continued to ride me, showing me that she wanted me to join with her like this as well.

Completely overwhelmed, I felt my fangs enter her flesh and a world of light exploded behind my eyes as I exploded into her body. I could feel her coming around me again and that drew it out for me, making the waves of pleasure that shook me to my core go on and on. I was falling, sure that the ropes had broken on the bed and we were going down. It was then that she bit into my neck, tearing my flesh causing a new wave of pleasure to roll through me. My eyes rolled back into my head and I felt myself slipping away…falling. Suddenly, I felt my blood moving inside her, moving into all the places that needed healing and I latched onto to that and held on, coming back from the dark abyss of pleasure that had threatened to take me away, perhaps even to my true death.

I felt her reach for me then, with her mind, her life force and she grew warm in my arms. I could see her lighting up with no need for eyes and knew in that moment that I had been accepted into the Sky Fae Tribe in a way more finite than our heartfelt vows could ever have done. She shared her light with me as I did my blood with her and in that moment finally, at long last, I became one with the woman in my arms.

When I finally opened my eyes, expecting the sky bed and us to have been expelled from the heavens and cast down on the ground, I beheld another sight entirely. Sookie was still in my arms, her body wrapped around me protectively and we were back in handmade bed in the snowy forest that we had visited when last we shared blood. For a moment I just looked around in wonder. It was like no time had passed from our last visit. The snow was still falling gently and the furs that had covered the bed were still there. I automatically reached down and pulled one up around Sookie's back, and then around myself to protect us from a chill. Her head was on my shoulder and I could feel her soft even breath on my neck, letting me know that she was all right, only resting. Careful not to jostle her I turned my face up and closed my eyes, letting the soft kiss of the snow press itself to my skin.

I had thought this was a dream! She stirred slightly, waking, and said softly in my ear. "Illusion." I waited to see if there was more she would share. She snuggled closer to me, sighing contentedly and went on. "I know now it was an illusion. The gift is inherent to the Sky Fae. Somehow, when we were together you activated that gift in me and I shared it with you. When I taste your blood it reminds me of snowy woods. It's like I smell your memories. This place is what you smell like when you share yourself with me. Manifesting it is my gift to you."

Yet another dream she made come true. "And the bed?" I asked, my smirk evident in my tone.

"Duh! Can't you take a hint?" I could feel her lips curl into a smile against my neck. I decided to play along.

"Oh, you want take a nap?" She snorted, quite unladylike and quite adorable. Then she shifted in my lap grinding down demanding, quite unladylike and quite perfectly.

"Yes, I conjured an illusion to win your heart because I want to take a nap now," she deadpanned.

"Good, because I want a nap now, too," I deadpanned right back, cupping her bottom and pressing her down on me as I thrust up, getting into the spirit of this new game. She moaned and I mentally put a check in the I win column. She attacked my neck then, biting and sucking but not breaking the skin. I moaned. "Score one for the fairy," she giggled holding me tighter in her arms. She could score them all if she kept doing that, because very soon we would both be winning. I rolled us over on the bed and started kissing my way down her neck, marveling at the feel of snow against my naked back. She was amazing and she was mine.

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Time runs fast and wide, narrow and slow in Fae, not in the straight measurable units that coincided with how we marked it in the place she and I came from. I had no idea how long we played in the snow or stayed in the tree. There was only her body and mine, her soul and mine and each time we came together they entwined themselves more deeply, creating a bond that burned with a blinding intensity. At times it drove me to take her hard and fast, demanding her promise of forever over and over. Others it let me love her slowly and gently as though reaping the benefits of her vows. In the moments I could think at all I shoved the dark times away and focused only on the now. I needed to drink in every single breath of her and take them into myself to light the dark corners. In the tangled sheets, beneath the green bows around us we exchanged light and blood and I felt her love bloom inside me, and mine inside her.

At last, all doubt left me, and her I saw it in her eyes. She could feel how much she meant to me now, and I knew beyond any doubt that what she felt for me was just as real. Nothing would ever make us doubt what we had again. The knowledge kicked loose the last threads of fear that discolored the beautiful tapestry that was our story.

We loved each other with everything we were until there was nothing left to give and exhaustion took us away.

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_Viking?_ Someone was calling me. _Viking?_ My eyes opened and I found Sookie asleep on top of me. Her beautiful long hair tangled around her and me where we had collapsed, unable to go on. _Viking?_ Gently, I slid from beneath her and sat up on the edge of the bed in the tree, looking around for who was calling to me. I blinked in the muted sunlight and made my eyes focus.

_Down here._ I looked down and found Niall smiling up at me. _ Come. Let us take a walk. Don't wake, Sookie. I want to talk to you alone._ My clothes were lost somewhere in the sheets, or the forest, who knew? I glanced around and I felt my skin tingle as they appeared again. I looked at him. _Sookie would not want to share what she has claimed as hers. Best not to tempt any we might run into_. Unsure what was going to happen next I floated down from the bed to stand before him on the ground. I glanced back up and saw that some of her long tresses were dangling over the edge of our heavenly resting place.

_She'll be fine_, he told me, still not speaking aloud as he walked away, deeper into the forest. I followed anxious to see what was on his mind. After some distance he turned to me and pulled up his sleeve. "Drink," he said gently. I hesitated. I might not be able to stop without her here.

"I have shared Sookie's blood many times. Is this truly necessary?" I asked him. He nodded and held his arm toward me again. Bracing myself I stepped to him and bit into his wrist. It tasted different than it had before. Now, Sookie was more obvious in his blood and while he still tasted pleasant I did not feel myself grow intoxicated as I had before. When he told me to stop, I had no trouble pulling back and sealing his wounds. Wiping my lips with my fingers I waited for him to speak.

"You have bonded to her." It was not a question. "More importantly, she has shared her light with you. It was something that she unknowingly started when you stayed with her long ago. You asked her to be one, and she accepted. Do you remember?"

"How do you know this?"

"I have always watched over Sookie. I will always watch over her." I nodded, appreciating his commitment to keep her safe as we faced whatever come next. "You have accepted her bond and you are now even more a part of my family." He motioned to my left shoulder and I slid my shirt over to see a small green tattoo that was in the same design as Sookie's.

"Will I get wings, too?"

"No," he shook his head, smiling. "You really are quite taken with them aren't you?" I shrugged. Some people like feet, what could I say? Sookie's wings were far more delightful than feet. He laughed then, out loud and his joy stirred my blood as it had before when we danced. My ears were slow.

"What do you mean 'even more'?" Niall hesitated and I could tell he was unsure of how to proceed.

"I walked the world you come from for thousands of years. I assisted in the creation of this world where my kind could hide when there was no place left for us in what was our home. Once I had set things right I returned to the other side in my quest for vengeance. This is a quest you understand, I believe." Images of my parents and their deaths filled my mind and he nodded. "I gave up many things for my quest, but I gained things as well.

"While I was there searching for Warlow I found a woman who inspired me to feel what you feel for Sookie. We had a child together and when she aged and passed I watched over my line in that world just as I watched over my line this world. I could not always protect them. It is difficult to walk in two worlds. You understand this as well, I think."

"Yes, as few could."

"You know that Sookie is part of that legacy. What you don't know is that Godric, your maker, was of my line as well."

"Did Godric know?"

"No, I did not tell him. He was many generations removed from me and I had ben pulled away here for moment, and when I returned he had been made vampire. I blamed myself for failing him for a long time. My heart bled with him as he fought his darkness and tried so hard to find his way back to the light. It was a struggle that he did not fully understand and a pain that in the end was too much for him to bear." A tear slid down his cheek. "I was called here again when he died on that rooftop in Dallas. I channeled the spirit of nature and saw that you offered yourself to die with him." The wound his words touched in me was still raw as it had been then. My face must have betrayed me, because he reached out to me, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"You need to know, Eric, that you were that light for him. When he made you, it was the beginning of his path back to the light. He loved you, delighted in you and that feeling showed him the way from the darkness that had held him for a thousand years! It was in teaching you to be who you are now that he too learned who he wanted to be and strived to get there. In some ways, you were as much his maker as he was yours." Perhaps it was the Fae blood, perhaps it was that I was still undone from my time in Sookie's arms, but I felt the anguish push out of me and I cried out, roaring into the forest, sharing my pain because I could no longer contain it inside the smallness that was me. I did not resist when he pulled me into his arms and held me close, crying with me at the loss we both shared with Godric's passing. Finally, squeezing me one last time he stepped back.

"I saw something else when I channeled nature's memory of his passing. Something that I want to share with you now." He put his hands on my face and suddenly I was back on that rooftop watching myself walk away from him as he had commanded me to do. I watched myself stop in front of Sookie.

"I'll stay with him. As long as it takes." I saw myself nod and felt my heart hitch at her beauty in that tragic moment as it had then. I had wanted to crawl into her soft arms and cry out my broken heart. But I had walked away, starting a pattern that was to last for years to come. Turning back, I saw what I had wondered about for some time, but had never dared to ask. The only time I might have been brave enough I had forgotten that I wanted so badly to know.

"It won't take long, not at my age."

"You know, it wasn't very smart. The Fellowship of the Sun part." Oh, my love. So brave and reckless to lecture a two thousand year old vampire on his lack of wisdom. To my surprise, he simply agreed with her.

"I know. I thought it might fix everything somehow. But I don't think like a vampire anymore." Then he surprised me even more when he turned to her, "Do you believe in God?"

"Yes," she said as she shook her head no. Did my love realize she was so conflicted on this subject?

"If you're right, how will be punish me?"

"God doesn't punish, God forgives." She believed that her body language told me so.

"I don't deserve it. But I hope for it."

"We all do." Ah, so that is the source of her conflict. What does my lover hope to be forgiven for?

"You'll care for him, Eric?" I felt the bottom drop out of me. I had told him that she stirred me in our moments together on the roof before she arrived. I never dreamed he would share that with her.

"I'm not sure. You know how he is." I had to laugh, because I did know how I was, how I could be.

"I can take the blame for that, too."

"Maybe not, Eric's pretty much himself." She hesitated then. "Are you very afraid?"

"No. No! I am full of joy!

"But the pain…"

"I want to burn." And in that moment I saw his joy and knew that he did indeed want to be on that rooftop. It had been a very long time since I had seen my maker look so happy.

"Well, I'm afraid for you." Oh, my love, so brave even then, and then I saw something that I never would have expected. He turned to her with a curious joyful expression that made me cry out again at his beauty.

"A human with me at the end, and human tears. Two thousand years and I can still be surprised. In this, I see God."

"Goodbye, Godric" He stepped forward and then he was gone in a brilliant blue flash. Niall rested his hands on my shoulders and looked deeply into my eyes.

"Sookie did what neither of us could do. She finished what I started, and you carried in the middle. She sent him on his journey with love and kindness. I owe her a debt that can never be repaid."

"As do I." For so long I had imagined the pain and fear that Godric must have felt as he faced the sun. Now, I knew it had not been so. He had been filled with joy and my love had kept her word, stood beside him and inspired him to believe in something that might welcome him in the next life. Just when I thought I had finally got to top of how much I could love my wife, I found more. My feelings for her had already hallowed me out and made room for her inside me. I felt myself expand to take in more and knew that as I had grown with Godric and he with me, I would grow still more with her at my side.

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We walked on for a while each thinking our thoughts about what we had just shared. Now, at least I knew why he seemed familiar. In a way, he was my grandfather as well. He was my family. A little bit of the empty that had been Godric, Nora and my human family had filled itself in. I was healing.

"When I was called back during the time of Godric's passing it was because things had shifted here in Fae. Mab, the Water Fae Queen had started gathering all the halflings from your side and trapping them here. She was telling everyone it was to protect Fae and prevent the dilution of Fae blood from these children that we had left on the other side, but that was not the truth. The Water Fae have corrupted their environment to the point that it is poisoning them and they have lost the ability to reproduce. She wanted the halflings to start a breeding program." My fists clenched. Mab and Sophie Anne would have gotten on famously!

"She tricked Sookie into crossing over the night you were nearly killed by Compton. Her rage is beyond measure that Sookie dared defy her and escape. Then, she did not know that Sookie was my blood, but if she had found out it would have only made it more dangerous for her. Mab and I have been at odds for centuries. She believes that the Fae are the superior race over all races and would see your realm under her control. She will attempt to raise an army to achieve that and with all the halflings that she was able to collect she may in time be able to do this." Sookie had never told me what happened in Fae, or confirmed for me that that was where she had been. I had heard Compton rattling on about it the night she returned but had dismissed it. I was too excited to have her back. And then of course, I had screwed up our reunion by trying to claim her without revealing my heart. I sighed.

"We have both made mistakes when it comes to handling Sookie. We are lucky that her heart is as big as her stubborn streak and she loves us in spite ourselves." I really liked this old fairy. He seemed to understand me. Perhaps because we were both men from another time. I would enjoy talking to him when we were past this danger he had shown us.

"If Mab believes that the Fae are superior what is it that you believe?"

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose. That no one race is above another, we all serve a greater purpose." He looked at me and winked. I had no idea what that meant. "The reason that I am telling you about Mab is that I think she knows that Sookie is here now." I stopped.

"How?"

"At the party, you may not have noticed but there was one fairy who was out of sorts?" I shook my head. I had been so stoned on Fae blood and the vision of Sookie that I had let my guard down. "His name is Preston, and he had hoped that Sookie might in time come to love him. Seeing her with you, and how bright her spark was in your arms he knew that his dreams were dead. She would never be his."

"Where is this Preston? I will find him and end him now if he is a threat to her!"

"That's just it. He's disappeared. I cannot be certain, but I suspect he has gone to Mab and will tell her of Sookie's connection to me."

"Then we are no longer safe here, either."

"I am afraid not, child." It was so strange to be called child by any but Godric, but if anyone had the right it was this man before me. He was six times my age and had been the blood ancestor of my maker. He could probably send me to my room with no dinner. Niall chuckled, seeing the image in my mind. "I am so very sorry. I had hoped to keep you both here safe for a long time. At least until the danger had passed on the other side. Human lives pass in a blink, and soon you would be free of all but DeCastro and his dog. As to that, who can say when a stake might find its way to his heart?" His eyes twinkled as he calmly suggested killing the vampire king of Nevada.

I could grow to love this man.

"If I am right Mab will bring her war to my doorstep. I may be needed here for some time and you will be on your own out there. Can you keep her safe?"

"She is my life. If it comes to it, I will die for her."

"I am sure she would rather you live for her. I know that I would, too. I fancy having the time to know you better. It would do my heart good to hear of Godric and the times you had with him around a warm fire some long night."

"Where ever I am you will always be welcome." Grandfather. I didn't say it but he heard it anyway. I could tell from the way his mouth crooked up at the corner as it had that night beside Caddo Lake when he had found me and Sookie there. He nodded and we turned back to where hopefully Sookie was still sleeping in our tree.

"There will come a time when you can return here as well, Viking, and I look forward to that very much." I did, too, more than I could say and I was grateful that he could read my thoughts and I didn't need to find the words to show him my heart. Just as our bed came into sight and I saw her there still sleeping peacefully I remembered something he had said about human lives being over in a flash. I stopped him.

"Niall, what about Sookie? Does she only have a mortal lifetime now?"

"Her time here and your blood have made her more than mortal. As to how long exactly, who can ever say with such things? But, her spark is strong, and you have promised her forever. Do you really think she is going to let you out of it now?" In my mind I saw her with her hair in curlers with a frying pan in her hand coming after me like a woman in a movie I had once seen going after her welshing husband. I knew that I was in this for the long haul with my fairy princess.

I was laughing when she looked down over the edge of the sky bed, her hair in a disarray from sleep and asked just what was so darn funny? For some reason she did not find the image in my mind amusing, and that only made it funnier to both me and Niall.


	12. The Fourth Interlude

**Come With Me Now- The Fourth Interlude**

Every story is a love story.

Mab had lived long enough to know this, the greatest secret truth the universe had ever held to its bosom. It was so simple once you knew it. It made you doubt everything you thought you knew that it had always been obvious but you missed it. There was also joy to be had in taking the knowledge and moving forward, but the irony was that for most who were granted a glimpse at this greatest of all secrets it was impossible to move on.

It was this knowledge and still not being able to change a single thing that mattered to her that had driven her to madness. It spun out in destruction, rage, and in self-indulgence of the things that could be had to compensate for that which was denied. This unraveling had been slow and fast and threatened now to tear apart everything that she had ever worked for, given herself over to, and sacrificed to achieve.

She was further damned in that there were still moments of shining sanity in the sharp edges of her time. Moments when she knew just how very badly she had fucked up, her life, her world, her tribe, and in those moments she searched desperately for a way to reverse course and make amends. Always though, before she could see a way to take the first step the moment passed and she fell back into the darkness that had consumed her. The darkness of a truth that was meant to be a universal panacea.

Every story is a love story.

Their other labels, horror, supernatural, mystery, drama, comedy were all superfluous and relevant only to the perspective of the observer in the moment. Anyone who came into Mab's story now, so close to the end, would see it as a horror story, for indeed she was, had been for thousands of years, a monster. Allowed to see only what she _was_, few would wonder at how she had _become_. Few would look beyond the single dimension of her current state and seek more than what they were presented with in the moment.

But there was more. So much more. In the beginning there had been love.

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Once upon a time there was a Water Fae Queen who loved a Sky Fae King. His name was Niall, and he made her pulse pound and her heart beat wildly. He left her breathless when he came into her presence. His backstory made him all the more a romantic figure to her mind. His whole tribe wiped out of existence by a vampire, a young babe left alone in an unforgiving world. How he made his way, a mystery. Who he was, a mystery. A story that that she longed to unravel, and join her own to in a single volume.

For a brief time their love had been brighter than the sun and she had been beyond what the word happy could describe. Together they made the Fae realm a reality to save their race, combining magics and will that could only have existed when nurtured in the bosom of their love story. They were a legend among the supernaturals, the Mother and Father that created an entire realm from their love alone.

She had imagined them ruling it forever, side by side in the same cloud of bliss they had shared in its making, but this was not to be. "I have to return now," he told her late one night as he held her close, attempting to shield her from the pain that he knew she would feel at his departure.

"Why?" was all she could get out.

"I have to find him, Warlow. He must pay for what he has done."

"Can't you let this go? Is what we have here worth so little to you?"

"No! The very opposite! I won't be able to truly be here with you until I have put this matter to rest once and for all!" Begging her to understand, to give him this time he needed to fight his demons he saw the love slowly start to drain from her beautiful luminous eyes.

"You tell me that all things have a season and reason and yet you take this on yourself alone. To correct this injustice and call for balance by taking this vampire's life. What is it you truly believe?" Searching deep inside of himself, and realizing the contradiction in his actions and his beliefs he still found himself helpless to change the course that he felt was the right one.

"I can only tell you that while there seems to be conflict in my words and deeds I see none in my heart. These actions I take now I believe are part of the greater truth. I don't have the knowledge to understand why or how that could be so, perhaps we will know in time. Do you believe in me, in us enough to give us that time?" So desperately he wanted her to say yes. Needed her to say yes. When she had turned from him it had shaken his belief, but not torn it asunder. He still needed to do what he believed was right. He consoled himself with the notion that this meant that she had a different path to walk herself. Those thoughts did little to heal the hole left from her loss.

It had taken him a thousand years to open his heart to love again. A mortal love who gave him a child and started his line on The Other Side.

Mab was never able to move on. The loss of her chosen mate and the impact of his departure to pursue his vengeance remained ever a hole inside her that nothing could fill. She took lovers, she bore children to them, Neave and Lochlan becoming her one solace in a world that seemed only to take and never give in return. She filled them with her grief and her poison and made them into dark and twisted images of what they should have been.

Everything in Mab's world was a dark and twisted image of what it should have been.

Her love became a poison that she spewed onto her children and her land. Because it was bound to her through the magics of creation became as twisted and crooked as her soul itself. The water, sacred to her tribe, dried up leaving only dessert. With the water went their ability to reproduce and their numbers waned. More and more of her people breached the divide to The Other Side to escape the world that was drying up around them, and there their seed did take root and grow. Mab resented this all the more. Something else The Other Side had taken from her.

Oh, how she hated that world that had taken her love, her people, her heart! They were beneath the Fae! The Fae should never have had to leave, it was their world first. It would be their world again! So she gathered the Halflings, planning to raise an army for Neave and Lochlan to reclaim what was their birthright! As she had made this world, she would make another for them and the Fae would rule as they were meant to do!

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"Queen Mab, you have a visitor." She had been in her study lost in thoughts and plans for taking the other realm.

"Visitor? No one visits here anymore." Her voice was thin and distant, showing her age, her insanity and the barest glimpse of her loneliness.

"Oh, Mother, you know that's not true. Lochlan and I are always here for you," Neave purred, rising from the corner, unwinding herself from her brother's arms. For a moment inside her Mad recoiled from the beautiful monster she had made in daughter. She knew that her children were lovers, everyone knew, but to see it, well, that brought it home in a way that knowing it alone could not do. _This is wrong!_ Her internal voices cried, only to be followed by another. _ No, only blood can be trusted to not leave you. You are one with blood and to betray that is to betray yourself!_

She remembered then that her children were lovers because she had bid it to be so. Filling them with the idea that they could trust no but each other. She even remembered the night- NO! She slammed that door shut and turned away.

"Show them in," she said. A few moments later a young Sky Fae entered the study and Lochlan rose to stand beside his sister. They moved as one to stand on either side of the boy, looking at him like dinner had just been served.

"Your majesty," he knelt before her, looking at the floor, his tone uncertain. Her children exchanged a glance that sent a chill up her back before reaching down in unison to pull him back to his feet.

"We don't stand on ceremony here, boy," Lochlan whispered in his ear, still holding his upper arm and stepping closer to rub his body against the boy suggestively. "What's your name?"

"P-Preston," he stammered out, clearly starting to regret his decision to come here.

"P-Preston," Neave mocked from the other side of him, pressing her breasts against him, "What news have you for us?" Preston's eyes darted around the room, clearly looking for a way out. Finding none, he dropped his head and accepted that this was indeed what his fate was to be. In one of her fleeting moments of sanity Mab empathized with Preston. She knew what it was to realize that there was no way out of the course you had set for yourself.

"The Halfling that escaped you has returned to Fae." Her moment of sanity eclipsed by rage she rose to her feet, the visage of an old weak woman falling away in the wake of this knowledge. Before Preston now stood the nightmare that he had heard whispered about since he was a child. The darkness of the Water Fae Queen was legendary in all of Fae. It kept young Faelings up, or woke them up with night terrors to think that she might grab them one day and spirit them away to her dark and wasted lands.

**"WHERE?"** she commanded, her voice shaking the very walls around them.

"At Niall's p-palace. She's his granddaughter."

_Granddaughter…granddaughter…granddaughter…_

It echoed inside the emptiness of Mab over and over, cutting and stabbing her twisted soul at each iteration. Like collapsing skyscrapers in the city of her mind, everything fell.

_He fucked a human when he left me._

_He fucked a human when he left me and gave them a child._

_He fucked a human when he left me and gave them a child that he has watched over for thousands of years._

And finally, the most damaging realization, the biggest building collapsed.

_He fucked a human when he left me and gave them a child that he has watched over for thousands of years because HE LOVED THEM!_

**HE LOVED THEM!**

Her scream tore the walls of palace down, forcing them to explode out with the force of her anger. Before the ceiling could fall on them she teleported them outside to the courtyard where she continued to wail, pulling her hair out in great handfuls. Preston, Neave, and Lochlan fell to their knees before her covering their ears in a futile effort to block out her screams. Chaos ruled Mab, voices gibbering and laughing.

_She escaped you so effortlessly, Queen Mab. A tiny girl in a blue sun dress humiliated you in front of all of Fae!_

_Pierced your illusion!_

_Made you look weak and foolish!_

_Niall's bastard!_

_Niall's made you look weak and foolish!_

Mad laughter rolled through her mind, hers maybe, someone else's, who knows these things?

_A tiny girl in a little blue sun dress! You old weak fool!_

"NO!" she screamed out in denial.

_Every story is a love story…every story is a love story…every story…every story…_

In her mind the door opened on this universal truth again, offering a raft to her sanity. From her perspective it was the cruelest thing that could have happened to her in that moment. What she could not see, had never been able to see or hold onto was that the love story was only the background that our choices play out against. If you get what you want, then you still have to make choices that make you worthy to possess this great gift. If you don't get what you want then you still have to make choices that show you were worthy. You still have to go on, without the prize and play as if you still mean to win it. Not doing so only proves that you were unworthy from the start.

It is startlingly easy to fail in either instance. If you are allowed possession of your heart's desire you have to fight becoming complacent and taking it for granted. It's a different kind of fight but one no less difficult than the one you wage if you are not allowed your heart's desire. To be denied opens the door for anger, resentment and hatred and if they are allowed to flourish and take root, then no satisfaction can ever be yours again.

It is this crossroads that determines who you will be.

_I chose the wrong path_, Mab knew in that moment of clarity. _I chose the wrong path_.

_Too late, too late_, the voices chided her. _She made a fool of you, Niall made a fool of you…fool…fool…fool._

Willfully, in that moment she turned from the truth, and fully embraced the monster she had become. There was only one direction left now.

Outside of her, she stopped screaming, collected herself and stood calm before Preston and her children. She smoothed her dress and looked up with a smile on her face and pure madness in her eyes.

"Let's pay them a visit, shall we?"


	13. Confessions In The Islands

_A/N- Super Lemons Ahoy! Read on at your own risk. :)_

**Come With Me Now- Confessions In The Islands**

The sun was setting when I awakened for the day and I immediately reached out to find Sookie, following our bond in time to see her rise from the ocean like the goddess she was. Completely tanned and naked to my gaze the beads of water on her skin made me thirsty to chase them down her stomach, her legs, but I was a pleasure delayer. Had she taught me that? Before Sookie had dived headlong into whatever I wanted zeal and exuberance. But, I had waited so long for her, and when I finally had been rewarded the doors of my soul had been blown open so wide I might never close them again.

That was scary.

I was all right with the fact that I might never be able to close them again.

That was even scarier.

She arched her back, wringing the water from her hair, making my body respond to her as if she was touching me. When she opened her eyes and saw me, she licked her lips and smiled.

It was getting less scary.

I felt my skin tingle and then I was standing before her, teleported to her touch. My Sookie was not a pleasure delayer. My Sookie was a pleasure seeker. I flashed on the young woman who stood before me so many years before and tried to reconcile that child with the goddess who reached out to me now, running her hand over my hips and squeezing down on what she called my 'fabulous bottom'. She pulled me toward her, and I let her move me closer. The final rays slipped from the sky as her lips slipped around my hard erection and when I threw my head back screaming pleasure I saw the first star of the night pierce the darkening veil above us. It made me dizzy when she did this to me and when I looked at the sky it felt like I was floating above the ground with no will of my own required.

My fingers came down to her back and found those little nodules that held her wings, rubbing them in slow circles. She moaned and swallowed my entire cock down her throat, needing to be closer to me. I loved that she could do that. It was so rare to find a woman who could deep throat my entire shaft, and it was doubly erotic to me that touching her like this made her work to get to closer to me, to take me all into her like this.

There was nothing scary about this at all.

There was only love here now. I could feel her love for me singing in our bond and she reached up to my chest with one hand as she hummed around my shaft and shot a bolt of fairy light into my chest I felt it flow through every cell in my body right down to my cock in her mouth. I moaned her name as she loved me like this, I never wanted her stop.

Since our first night in Fae she had shown me that she had indeed been right, I had no idea who she was or who she had become in the three years since we had been apart. Every new delight she shared with me was accompanied with a confession that left me decimated and wanting. Helplessly, I compared the woman I had loved so innocently on her cubby to the firebrand that consumed me now and came back over and over to the difference between a caterpillar and butterfly. She had taken those times and cocooned them into her very being, growing them in the beautiful form and fantasies that she now shared with abandon starting our first night here on this island sanctuary that I brought her to from Fae. She had asked me to picture it in my mind and then she had teleported us to the island that I had bought with her in mind.

A single rock formation that jutted out of the South Pacific. A small house set atop its stone visage, a chamber beneath for me carved in the stone. It had seemed a foolish indulgence to buy a home with her in mind from my first Nu Blood profits, but now it seemed ordained to be here with her like this.

Frustrated with my wandering thoughts and wanting them back on her and slowly rose up my shaft, swirling her tongue along the underside making the deep need for release in my belly coil a little tighter. She was going to kill me if she kept that up. Swirling around the top of me, delving her tongue into the slit and then sliding down my shaft again, I felt the back of her throat open and take me back into her depths, at the same time her one had still on my chest, she cupped me gently in her other hand and I felt her light up in time to know what she was about to do. Anticipating it made me swell in throat, release coming fast now and when she shot light into my balls resting in her hand and my chest I roared like the king of the jungle and gave her what she had been wanting. Minx that she was, she pulled back so that I came in her mouth, she wanted to taste me, and knowing that she longed for me in this intimate way made me come again on her tongue, every muscle in my body tensing, as I held onto her shoulders to remain standing and not break this precious connection until I had given her what she needed.

Getting every last drop of me, she kept swirling her tongue as she hummed her pleasure at my offering, making me hard again. She wasn't done with me yet.

Our first night here she had done this, after confessing that her nights in Fae had been filled with her desire to do this with me. How she had run from the other fairies and their celebrations to her room where she locked the door and rolled in her satin sheets, bringing herself to orgasm over and over while she imagined tasting me on her tongue. "I would come so hard when I thought of you like this that I was sure you could hear, me, feel me, Eric. Only imagining you did this for me. Remembering how you felt when you slid into me, thick and hard, stretching my body around yours and I would bite my hand to keep from screaming your name out loud. I needed you so much," her impassioned whisper in my ear made me hard then and now.

"I used to do the same," I told her, revealing the depth of my need to her, something I had never imagined I would be able to do. "I would think of you each night when first I rose. I would imagine you there, your smell, your smile and how you felt around my cock and I would ache to come inside you again. So many nights I touched myself and pretended it was your soft hand loving me. Even when I only imagined you it felt like you were tearing my soul out when I came calling your name over and over."

Fuck, I had just come for her and I was hard and aching again! When she released me from her hot torturous lips and pulled me down to her I was mad with need to be inside her. I was barely able to think but when she sat me down and turned her back to me, conjuring her words from another night to my mind. "Sometimes, I imagined you taking me like this, my back pressed to your hard chest, your cock buried inside me as I rode you hard, taking you so deep as you pinched my nipples and demanded that I come for you." As she spoke she made word action and pressed back into my chest as she slid me into her then and now. She moaned as I filled her, leaning forward just a little, making me follow her to keep my body close to hers. At this angle she could rub that sweet spot deep inside her with ever swivel of hips. I could feel her wetness, she was dripping down my shaft and covering my thighs in her need for her body. "Only you, only thoughts of you make come like this, Eric," she had whispered to me that night, and as it had then my cock jerked at her confession. She moaned, feeling me twitch deep inside her.

I wanted to move, to thrust my hips almost more than I wanted anything else in the world, but more than that I wanted her to come on my arms as she rode me now. I wanted to please her as she had just done for me. So, I encased her in my arms, cupping her breasts that hung heavy from body just a little because of the way she was leaning, and let them rest in my hands. My fingers found her nipples and pinched them as I knew she wanted while she flexed her hips and internal muscles around me.

"I promised myself," she had told me in the dark, "I promised myself that if I were ever lucky enough to love you, to deserve you that I would never ever hold back. That I would do every little thing I had imagined, that I could imagine to you, for you, with you. I would not waste a single chance to live out every dream I ever with you," Remembering that now, holding her a tightly in my arms as she rode me almost undid me again. Knowing that she wanted me that way, the same all-consuming way that I wanted her, needed her was more than I had dared dream. There was a sexiness in her shy innocence that I had found alluring, but this woman my arms now, she was the dream I never dared let my heart dream.

She was very close now, I could hear it in her breathing. I rolled her nipples between my fingers and flexed my hips gently, pressing deeper into her heat and she exploded in my lap, calling my name as her head fell back on my shoulder. I kissed her neck softly, burying my face in her neck, shaking because I was still so hard inside her. "You didn't wait for me to command you come," I whispered in her ear.

"We're not done yet, cowboy," came her breathy reply before she turned her head and claimed my lips as she had the rest of me. Her tongue tangled with mine and the faint taste of me on her tongue made my hips flex again, pressing into her hot depths. Moaning she broke the kiss, panting in my arms. Slowly she rose off me, moaning unconsciously at the loss of me. I gasped as the cool evening breeze kissed my over sensitive shaft as she freed me. She took my hand and brought it between her legs, coating it with the moisture that was pooled there and then guiding it around to her other entrance. My mind melted as I realized what she had planned. Another confession accompanied this glorious action.

"In Fae," her breathy quiet words broke the night, "I dreamed of you taking me like this. How it would feel to have you buried inside me like that would make me so fucking wet! I would come again and again, trying to get you and this image of my mind, what you feel like, what you would say when I squeeze you so tight in this new way!" She was positioning me at this new entrance now and I felt something slip down the side of my face. It's just my brain melting, I thought unable to speak, unwilling to move and break this spell she had woven around us. She pressed down slowly, and gasped the most perfect sound I have ever heard as she started to stretch around my aching cock. Her head was turned as far back as possible and her back was arched to try and see where we are about to be joined. "Look, Eric. Watch us together!" My gaze flew down just in time to watch the head of my cock slide into her, to see how her tight body opened itself to me in this new way.

The image, the sensation, was too much. I wanted to pound into her, but feared hurting her. "No, don't be afraid, never be afraid!" She gasped as she kept pushing down on me until I buried completely in her beautiful round ass. She was shuddering in my arms, breathing in gasps as she fell back against me again, this new sensation undoing her as it was me. "It's better than I ever imagined!" she ground out through a locked jaw as she started to squirm in my lap, adjusting her body to mine. Needing to make this as good for her as I could I reached around her body and plunged my long fingers into her wetness. She screamed her pleasure as I found her sacred spot again and started rubbing it slowly. I could not hold back anymore and let my hips thrust up into her tight ass. We moaned in unison, I could feel her tight around me and I could feel my shaft rub against my fingers inside her. "Fuck, Sookie," I hissed in her ear, my other hand coming back up to cup her breast again as she rode me.

"Yes! Fuck Sookie!" she moaned raising up slightly giving me room to thrust into her. I wasn't going to last long, fuck I might die at any moment. Twisting her nipple, pressing against her G-spot with my fingers I thrust into her as deep as I could and commanded in her ear,

"Come for me, Sookie!" She moaned.

"So close. Need you to bite. I want everything, Eric. Give me everything. Come! Come with me, now!" Her head fell over, offering her neck to me and she clamped down on me inside her demanding my release as I had hers." I thrust harder, pressed harder, twisted harder, and just before I slid my fangs into her long neck I whispered again.

"Come for me, Sookie!"

As soon as my fangs entered her she went off like a rocket, squeezing my cock and my fingers as she came in my arms. My mouth full of her sweet blood was sensory overload and I emptied into her body everything I was, had been, would ever be. I was hers completely.

I remembered to seal her neck with my tongue and then I remember only the black.

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I woke in our bed to her kissing my face. Her tongue darting out and caressing me in between. "MMMMMM," she vibrated against me and I noticed then that her warm sun kissed body was pressed to mine.

"What are you doing, wife?" I asked, pulling her closer to my cool form.

"You cried," she said softly continuing to kiss my cheeks softly, her tongue darting out to lick me clean in between. Ah, not my brain melting after all, I thought, realizing that it had been tears sliding down my face before. This was back to being a little scary. Being so undone was…new.

"'S'new for me, too," she whispered back as she continued on. "I only ever dreamed that I would have the chance to show you my heart. Bringing it to life is intense for me as well." Knowing I could hide nothing from her, and not really wanting to I asked what was on my mind.

"Does it scare you, too?"

"Yes, it does. It's so much MORE than I ever imagined. It makes me feel hollow inside, and full up at the same time. It's..amazin' and scary, but I don't want to stop."

"Me neither." She sighed then, and I felt her relax a little against me. Had she been worried that I would pull away? Well, of course she was, that is after all what I did best!

"Shhh," she said, snuggling into my chest. "Don't start over thinkin' this, Eric. We both were wrong for a long time. We can't get that back, but we can make it different from now on. That we can do!" She hugged me then and I tried to keep my thoughts there with her, here, in this moment but my mind refused to let that happen. So many thoughts, regrets, losses. I felt an ache in my chest as I thought of our most recent loss.

Pam.

I had tried to protect her and I had failed.

I blamed myself for her death. There was none other I could blame. I had reached out to her when we returned from Fae, immediately warning her of the danger, begging her to find some place safe until we could figure out a plan. I asked her to join us on the island but she refused.

"Eric, I know what it means to you to finally have the fairy by your side. I don't belong there."

"You do, Pam! You have always belonged at my side, too. If you know nothing else you know that!"

"I won't make you choose again, Eric. If this goes down with the Yakuza like it has in the past that is what it will come to and I can't bear to see that look in your eyes again!"

"There will be no choice! You must come here now so that I know you are safe!"

"Give my love to Sookie, Eric. You already know you have it, now and forever." She'd hung up then, and a month later I had felt her die, somewhere out there in the world, I felt my Pam meet the true death.

We'd been in Fae for a year and a half by the way time moves on this side. Perhaps if I had warned her sooner. I should have gone to get her rather than counting on her to stay safe on her own!

Before I could spiral any further down, I felt Sookie hug me tighter, trying to bring me back to the here and now. It had been six months since I felt Pam pass, and it was still a raw gaping hole in my heart to feel her loss there. It was the guilt as much as the loss. I was her maker, I was supposed to protect her!

"Talk to me, Eric. Please don't shut me out now."

"I should have done something! I should have saved her!"

"If there was something you could have done, you would have done it! You warned her, offered her a place here with us and she refused. Pam had to make her own way, she told you that herself!" I took a deep unnecessary breath.

"She did it to save me and you."

"What?"

"When I got back from talking to you about Bill that night Mr. Gus had figured out that you knew about the cure. He had Pam under silver and was threatening to stake her if I didn't tell him where you lived so he could come and kill you."

"Oh, my God!" She sat up now, trying to process what I had just shared. "But no one came, Eric?"

"Oh, yes they did. Three Yakuza assassins. I killed them in your yard and then took the bodies away without you knowing." Her face suddenly morphed into understanding.

"I heard that ruckus outside! It woke me up but when I got to the window there was nothing out there." I smiled faintly at her.

"I'm quick, what can I say?"

"Fuck, I wish you had told me, Eric. That and so many things!" Tears were in her eyes now.

"And what? Get a pity fuck from you?"

"It would not have been that! It was never that!" I softened at her anger.

"I didn't know that at the time. I needed to keep you safe, but I couldn't let you know. I didn't want you from obligation. I wanted you to want me as I wanted you." She puffed her cheeks and expelled air out forcefully. Then she nodded and settled back down next to me, hugging me again, reminding me once again of the difference between the girl and the woman.

"So," I began again, holding her close to me, "When I got back, Pam and I killed Mr. Gus. I was tired of fucking around, and he was the only one who knew about you. I thought-" I stopped then, realizing the colossal idiocy of what I was about to say, "I thought I could keep you both safe if he was dead. Instead, I signed Pam's death warrant."

"NO! She made her choice. Pam always made her own choices. I never understood them, sometimes you did, but she made her own choices, no matter what. To second guess them is to devalue the brilliant woman she seems to have been."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't know her like you did, Eric. But when I see her in your mind, when I see what she did for you, saving you out of sheer stubbornness, I wish I had known her. I think underneath all the piss and vinegar I would have liked her. And I think that while she didn't have much to say to me before, she would have liked the me that I am now, too. I regret not having a chance to see." I kissed the top of her head, agreeing that Pam might have found the new Sookie as acceptable as a friend indeed. I felt her tears against my chest and while they cut me in a different way than my grief for Pam they also stirred many other emotions.

It was good to have someone to mourn Pam's loss with me. It struck me then, how I had cruised for so long and not lost anyone I cared for until I met the one person who could have helped me deal with those losses and go on.

"You get a good thing, and you get a crappy thing," she said to my side, sniffling. She looked up at me and saw my eye brow raised questioning her statement. "Somethin' my Gran used to say when I was little. "Sookie," she started doing what I had to assume was in imitation of grandmother, "Sometimes you get something really good, but then you get something else to balance that. Life is neither good nor bad, we have to have the bad to appreciate the good things and to know the difference." Her grandmother sounded wise for a human.

"I've been around long enough to know a good thing when it's pressed up against me," I smiled at her.

"Me, too," she answered me and hugged me again. For a moment I forgot the ache in my chest and I kissed the top of her head.

"Thank you," I told her speaking from the heart. I meant for earlier that night, and for her comfort over the past few months. Both actions rendered me incapable of further speech and once again I was glad that she could see my heart without words now.

"I should be thanking you. That was my dream for a very long time." I kissed her head again.

"Mine, too." After a few moments I asked her what she had done today while I rested.

"I went to see Colonel Clinton." She knew how I felt about this, and I felt her brace for my anger. Sookie had not been the only one to change though. I stopped and appreciated the fact that she had been honest with me. I wanted her to feel like she could continue to be honest with me. Large over emotional displays of fangs and screaming were not conducive to openness. She was here now, and she was safe. We had talked about the risks of her popping around the world while I was dead for the day and she knew them and what would happen to me if she were hurt or killed. I had to believe that she understood that risk and that what she was after was worth it.

I had not always been so reasonable. Shortly after Pam died she came up with the idea that we should investigate the forces gathered against us and see if we could come up with any idea on what the hell to do next. I had planned to kill them all, so I didn't think any deep plotting would be required, and didn't take kindly to Sookie calling me out on that.

"There is a larger picture here, Eric. So you kill Clinton, what then? Are you going to take on the entire US military? Are you going to stand up the National Guard and the armed forces if they turn on us in the open? Right now they are operating in the shadows, but a bloody rampage would give them the ammunition they need to come out and hunt us in the open! You're smarter than that! I know it because I learned it from you!

"Grandfather said he had a spy in Clinton's camp. Let's see if we can figure out who that is and whether we can be of any help to stop this blood bath before it happens!" In the end I had seen the reason that she spoke, but it wasn't easy. My grief was driving me then and I had to keep myself on a tight leash as she popped us to Las Vegas to find the fairy spy in the general's ranks. It turned out to be a fairy named Dermot, who looked disturbingly like Jason Stackhouse. Their eyes were a different color and after a few minutes I realized that there was also a variance in intelligence that fell in Dermot's favor. The only thing that made uncomfortable with him was how he looked at me. Clearly, he thought I was attractive.

"HE IS MINE!" Sookie had stepped in front of me, claiming me in front of her kin, quite fiercely. So. Fucking. Hot.

"Easy, little Halfling. I got, I got it! Put your light away." He had laughed then and turned his flirting down several degrees, but I could still sense his desire for me smoldering beneath the surface. Sookie could, too because she kept herself between us at all times during that meeting. Perhaps this fairy had more in common with Stackhouse than his appearance. Jason had quite a reputation with the ladies. A dirty look from Sookie made that train change tracks midstream.

Through Dermot we had found the general's residence. "He's not a bad sort," Dermot had said as he stood with us in the bushes. "He doesn't hate supernaturals, in fact he feels that the treatment they are being subjected to makes his country a hypocritical mockery of itself and him since he has dedicated his life to serving it."

"But he works with DeCastro carrying on the monstrous work that was begun in Louisiana!" My fangs were down and my rage was up.

"It wasn't just in Louisiana, vampire. It was going on in other places, too, though perhaps not as aggressively. They seemed have a real hard on for your kind down in the bayou." Dermot lapsed into a Louisiana accent as he spoke and for a second I was sure I was standing with Sookie's brother after all. "What they did down there has definitely given jump start to some of their other programs, though."

"Can Clinton be turned to our side?" I admired Sookie's focus in the face of this new information and chided myself for not exhibiting more control than my young wife. I was supposed to set the example here, or so I thought until I watched her outshine me. Dermot seemed to think over her question.

"Maybe. If he is handled right, maybe he could turned." We had left that night, returning to our island to consider our next move and when I rose the next evening she told me that she had been to visit Clinton during the day. I had exploded and we had fought. Eventually, we calmed down and talked it out, but I made sure that she heard my side and was aware of the danger that she was placing us both in if she continued down this path.

She argued that we needed an ally on that side and that it was worth the risk to save my race and hers.

The truth in my heart made me a selfish cold bastard, but I had told her before. I cared only for a small handful of vampires and her. Most of those vampires were gone now, and that left only her. The rest of the world could burn, as long as she was fine I didn't care.

"But that's just it, Eric. I won't be fine if we let the world burn."

"WHY DO YOU CARE SO FUCKING MUCH ABOUT ALL OF THEM SOOKIE? WHY DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT ME? ABOUT US?"

She usually screamed back at me when I lost my shit like that. I was surprised when she sat down and motioned to the seat next to her. I wanted to break some shit, not sit down and be reasonable, but, breaking shit was not going to solve this issue between us. I dropped down beside her and she took my hand, rubbing her thumb against mine in slow soothing circles. Slowly, my rage faded, but I still needed an answer to my question.

"Why, Sookie?"

"I've been alone for most of my life, trapped in myself with everyone's thoughts. You know this." I nodded, not seeing where she was going with this. "Some people have ugly minds, ugly thoughts and ugly souls, but not everyone. Some people are what we imagine we would like ourselves to be, open, kind, loving, gentle. They accept others for who and what they are. They walk through life seeing the wonder in everyone and everything around them.

"I was always drawn to those people, whenever I was lucky enough to find one, and I will grant you they are extremely rare individuals." She laughed then, "I remember I was at the Shreveport mall this one time and I found one of those people. I followed him around for hours, just bathing in his thoughts, his _goodness_. It was a man who was very much in love with this wife. They had just found each other and while he had always been this kind of rare individual being with someone like himself took him to a whole new level! As he walked through the mall he looked at the people around him and thought, 'Everyone is someone's Melinda.' Melinda was his wife's name.

"I found this to be a beautiful thought in a beautiful mind. Hell, I followed him almost to his car, not wanting that light to fade for me. For years I remembered him, but it wasn't until our time in Fae that I really understood what he meant." She looked at me then, and I saw tears in her eyes, her other hand joined her first, sandwiching mine between them, squeezing tightly. "Everyone is someone's Eric." She pushed her feelings to me in the bond we shared and in the connection of our hands with her light.

This feeling of warmth and love and safety invaded me, relaxing my muscles, and calming me entirely. It was like nothing I had ever felt before, no it was like what I felt for her, only magnified and multiplied by the magic that was Sookie. "This is what I feel when I think of you, of what it's like to be one with you at last. I don't understand how we got here, and I don't understand how we ever stayed away from it as long we did, but this feeling, this FEELING is what that man meant that day when he thought of his wife Melinda. It's what I FEEL when I think of you, husband.

"Those people out there, every one of them is someone's Eric. He either comes to home to them every night, or he is on his way to them with every choice he makes and every path he takes. He may find them in this life, he may find them in the next, but he will find them, as surely as we found each other I know this." She stopped now, and took a breath.

"I choose to believe that even the really ugly ones are on the same path, just not as far along. Not ready yet, to feel THIS," she pushed it to me again and gasped as it flowed through me. "Not ready to BE THIS, not yet. But given their own time, and allowed to walk their own path they will get there. I wasn't ready myself, I didn't know myself until I found you, beloved.

"It's not that I care more about them than you, or us, Eric. It's that the love I have for you makes me want to share it with the world, and give them a chance to feel it, too." I had stopped her words with kisses then, and I had loved her for hours to show her that she was not in this alone. It was days later, when I recalled that conversation that I saw that I had only proven her point.

That feeling was precious. It was what made living into being alive. Everyone needed a little of that. Even an old soulless creature of the night like me knew that.

I remembered that feeling now when I looked at my probably foolish, still too human Fae wife at my side. Gods, I loved her. I focused on the love and not the fear and asked her to tell me more of what she had done today while I rested.

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_A/N- I do not plan to let Pam go the way Tara did, off camera, so to speak. Her story will be the fifth and final interlude._


	14. Silver Chains & Guns of Light

_I remembered that feeling now when I looked at my probably foolish, still too human Fae wife at my side. Gods, I loved her. I focused on the love and not the fear and asked her to tell me more of what she had done today while I rested._

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**Come With Me Now- The Mountains-Silver Chains & Guns of Light**

She told me that Clinton had listened to her plead her case again, asking questions that she was careful to answer truthfully, but not to give too much away. She could read his thoughts and could tell that he was asking because he was curious and not gathering intel to use against them, but still the risk was too great. He wanted to know about fairies, and more about vampires in the wild.

"They're people," she had told him in all sincerity. "Some of them good, some of them not so good, but they are no less worthy to live and have a chance to change than a human is."

"We put our offenders in prison. What do you the vampires and the fairies do?"

"Depending on the offense imprisonment or death, same as humans. Most often though it is execution." He had looked surprised at that.

"Why?"

"Too much risk in discovery by the populace at large." Being a career military man he had understood and even respected that a little. The needs of the many above the needs of the few. Still, what could he do?

"The same that any of us can do general. Make a difference where we can. Stand up for what we believe. Stay true to ourselves. If you truly think that what is being done here and in other places is wrong then do whatever you can to change it."

"And if I don't?"

"Well, like anyone else if you back them into a corner they will come out fighting. I don't want that any more than you do."

"Because humans would lose?"

"We would all lose! Please you must see that after the life you have led! No one ever really wins in a war." He sat back and stared at her intently. "If you have the ear of the decision makers, encourage them to make better decisions! Remind them that they made their names on fighting the kind of tyranny that they are leading here!" Her passion touched him.

"What are you?" he asked finally voicing what had been on his mind since she had started appearing on his doorstep at random odd moments over the past couple of months.

"Like everyone else, I am good and bad, and wondrous and cursed. I am mad and insightful, and terrified and filled with love. Much like yourself, general. For a long time in this country it has been touted that no matter the color of our skin we are all the same underneath. Why would that be different now?"

"What is your goal in all this?"

"To save the man I love."

"Tell me more of this man who could inspire such passion." She had looked into the general then and saw that once he had also once known love. Using the words she took from his heart to speak to him she tore down the final barrier that remained in his mind.

"He is wise and foolish, strong and tender. I am only whole when I am with him, and this world and all its inhabitants only serve to remind me of what love can and should be. He is mine and I am his and nothing, not even death could change that."

"Do you think the general understood you?" I asked her, moved by her words beyond anything I could think to say in return.

"Yes, he felt the same about his wife." I kissed her forehead softly.

"As I do for mine."

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After she told me of her day we went for a swim. It had become our second favorite activity since we had come to live here on this island. We dived off the top of our rock island, going deep as I had no need for air and she, through the use of her magic, was able to create an air helmet of sorts that allowed her to take air with her below the surface. She could swim at depth for nearly thirty minutes before needing to surface again and refresh her bubble. We had spent many nights exploring the ocean around our home and I always found these times to be magical and amazing.

The variety of sea life just beneath the surface was unimaginable. Once we had been caught in a school of tiny silver fish that tickled us as the swam around us in maddeningly dizzy and quick patterns. Not knowing what else to call them we dubbed them vampire fish because they darted about so quickly to and fro. Once we had seen a shark, and while at first we admired his form and beauty he had been a little too interested in Sookie for my taste. I was about to grab her and rise from the sea when she tapped him with a ball of light and sent him scurrying on his way.

The rest of that night and the ones that followed were filled with the tranquil beauty of gliding beside her in the water. We swam for miles, until she wore herself out, and would then climb on my back for me to take her home. Swimming was, for me, like flying, she would hold on tight and laugh as I flew beneath the waves fast and then slow. Her pet name for me was Dolphin, and I let her tease me with it as I showed her what my bottle nose could do in the wee hours of our mornings together.

Never in all my years had I felt the peace that I felt with her in that time together on the island.

The sea was surprisingly empty tonight so we did not linger as we did sometimes did , instead returning home after only an hour or so among the waves. Dawn was still a couple of hours away and we had time to talk and join together again before the sun took me away for the day.

I had just touched down on the stone dock when the silver chain rose from the sea and wrapped itself around my neck. I shoved Sookie away and feeling my pain in the bond she teleported immediately, something that I had made her promise to do if we ever found ourselves under attack. I knew where she was headed and what she was going to do when she got there. That allowed me to focus on the attacker.

Grabbing the chain I jerked hard and pulled my assailant from the water, tossing him over my head and freeing myself of the silver simultaneously. I watched as he crashed into the stone and bounced, thrilled to hear a bone or two break as he bounced up from the force of his landing, his screams of pain soon splitting the night air. My hands and neck were already healing.

"NEAVE!" he called out, gasping for air, which told me it was his ribs which had let go, and that he was not alone. Quickly, I searched the area with my senses and found no one else, but this one had been hiding underwater. Neave could be as well. I knew then who we were facing and I spared just a moment to worry for Niall.

If Mab's children were here after Sookie it is possible that he did not survive his war. Later, I told myself, pressing that down to focus on the moment. It was then that I felt Sookie's pain through our bond. Neave was in the house, which is where Sookie had teleported to get weapons.

I grabbed a groaning Lochlan by the neck and vamped to the house, bursting in, letting Lochlan take the brunt of the exploding door with his face, rendering him unconscious in my grasp. I don't know what I was expecting when I got there, but it surely was not what I beheld.

Sookie was bleeding from a wound in her side that was long and jagged but she was holding her own with a red haired fairy who must be Neave. At the moment Sookie had her held in a ball of deep purple light that seemed to be causing the Water Fae immense pain. The look of rage on my wife's face would have made me want to run, had I not be absolutely sure that she would never hurt me. She was that scary.

She had told me a little about her training in Fae over our time together. I knew that she had mastered a good bit of magic because Niall had been adamant that she able to protect herself. "I poured all my loneliness and regrets about you and us into learning," she had told me one night. "I think I wanted to make you proud of me, so that if we ever should meet again you would know that I was indeed worthy of a Viking such as yourself." Her voice rang out now, and I heard as well I saw her rage and pain. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for the Water Fae in her grasp.

"I see the things you had planned for me, Neave! How you and Lochlan planned to torture and rape me for hours. That's bad enough, but what really, really pisses me off, is that you planned to make Eric watch before you killed him!" Each time she said "really" Neave screamed a little bit louder and I found myself filled with rage at her revelation of their plans for Sookie and also incredibly turned on by Sookie's words and actions. Once there had been a time when she needed my protection, but that time was no more. Oh, she still had it, as long as there was enough blood in me to animate my body she had my protection, but I could see now in the strong woman before me that I was not needed, only wanted in her life.

It was oddly freeing somehow to finally, truly see my equal before me, and to know that she was mine. In that moment, Sookie jerked her right hand and closed her fist, sucking all the air out of Neave's lungs forcing them to collapse with a wet disgusting noise in her chest just before her eyes rolled back in her head and she died. Releasing her instantly Sookie turned toward me, her eyes falling on Lochlan. "Finish him!" she said, lightening in her eyes. Never taking my eyes off her I tore his head from his shoulders and threw it across the room to land next to what remained of Neave. Dropping his corpse I remained locked in place, waiting to see what she would do.

Slowly, she raised her arms, holding them open to me. I caught her just as her knees gave way. She was covered in blood and so was the floor, she had lost so much, maybe too much. Tearing open my wrist I offered her blood to heal. She swallowed and for a moment nothing happened. I felt my cold heart lurch as I feared I had lost her. Then she started sucking at the wound in my wrist with renewed strength and I knew that she would be all right after all.

Unless she has lost so much blood that this healing turns her.

Her eyes fluttered open and she pinned me with her gaze as her hands came up to my wrist, pulling it closer rather than pushing me away.

**So be it**, I heard her say in my mind, projecting her thoughts as Niall had done. She had never done that before, but that was second to my thoughts of Sookie willingly turning in my arms. After a few more deep drags she let go, and I looked down to see the jagged wound healing in her side now. Pulling her close to me, needing to get out of that abattoir that had been our main living area, I took her to my resting chamber. "Do you know if more are coming, Sookie?" There was still time to get us away from here if there was danger. She shook her head against my chest.

"No, it was just them. I read her thoughts. Mab is dead, and they came to get me as vengeance on Niall."

"He lives then?"

"Yes, as far as they knew." I felt no small measure of relief to hear that they old fairy was still among the living.

"How did they find us?"

"Water F-Fae," she said stammering. Despite my blood something was still wrong with her.

"Sookie?" I shook her gently laying her down on my bed and hovering over her, looking for wounds I might have missed on her body. "What do you mean Water Fae?" I needed to keep her talking, keep her here with me until I could figure out what was wrong. I probed our bond looking for pain, and I found it, just not the physical kind. She was in deep emotional pain.

"They found us in the water. They found us because we were swimming. S-spell, to find us if we happened to be in or near the w-water." She was really scaring the hell out of me now.

"What the fuck is wrong, Sookie? Talk to me goddamnit!"

"THEY WANTED TO HURT YOU!" she exploded off the bed, all alight, immediately removing the impression that she was weak or ill. She was levitating a foot off the floor in front of me now, encased in lavender light that was swirling around her clashing and raging like a storm. "THEY WANTED TO KILL YOU, ERIC!" Understanding flowed through me now. She wasn't hurt physically at all, it was emotional and it was centered around me.

"I'm right here, I'm fine, Sookie." I held my arms out to her and she floated into them, her emotional storm dimming as she came to rest, clinging to me.

"I can't lose you!" She was crying now, sobbing as she clutched at me, tearing my skin because we were both still nude from our swim. Her need swept through me as I opened the bond all the way and tried to lessen her pain, while pushing love and reassurance to her at the same time. It only made her cling more tightly to me. I rocked her gently as she cried out her rage and her anger and then when they had passed I reminded her in other more intimate ways that we had survived this together as would anything else that came at us from here on out.

I started with a kiss and a whisper, "As long as you can feel my lips on yours, you know I am fine, lover." I took my time, kissing her with every ounce of skill I had and making sure to hit all the ways that she liked to be kissed. Then I moved on to love her long neck with soft butterfly kisses. I wanted to adore her, and wanted me to make her feel me. Her need was more important than mine, though I was not unaffected from seeing her wounded and fighting for her life against Neave.

When she guided me into her and crossed her arms and legs over my back holding me to tightly and so closely I could hardly move I surrendered and buried my face in her neck and hair, inhaling deeply as she held me close. After several minutes her clench on me loosened and she turned to look me in the eye. "Make me feel you, Eric. I need to feel you, know that you are really here." I rocked my hips, hard into her, taking her breath away as I stared into her eyes. The connection so intense it felt like the rest of the world was burning around us. I pushed in again, harder this time, and was rewarded by her breathy confirmation of pleasure and knowledge that I was indeed present, and buried to the hilt inside her.

"Stop teasing, and fuck me like you mean it!" I raised an eyebrow at her words and placed a chaste kiss on her cheek.

"As you wish." I moved then at vamp speed, placing her on her knees in front of me, legs spread wide as I plunged back into her before returning to normal speed. My long arms allowed me to come down over her and rest my hands on the bed outside hers, while remaining inside her and offered the advantage of freeing my hips to pound into her. I kept our bond open to make sure that she was still all right and that I was giving her what she needed. It would also let me know if I went too far. She was pushing back against me now, grunting and straining, trying to take what she needed. I breathed on her neck, shushing her, "I know, baby. Just let me take care of you, Sookie." She stopped then and waited with her head hung down, I didn't leave her there.

I pulled out to the tip of my shaft and then plunged into her again, and again, at vampire speed, vibrating my entire body on each down stroke to add to her pleasure and her awareness that I was really, truly here. She came around me, screaming my name within moments, covering me in her slickness as she pushed back into me again and again. I didn't slow down, I kept fucking her fast and deep, through her screams and her orgasm that gripped me like a vise. I came inside her, another way to let her feel me, and fucked her through my orgasm as well, staying hard because I could tell that she was still reaching for what she needed and I refused to let her down. The sound of our bodies slamming together drown out even her deep panting breaths. I offered her my words.

"Sookie, feel me inside you?" She grunted, a deeply female and animalistic sound that went straight to my cock making me swell. She had me ready to come for her again, controlling me with her reactions. I ran my fangs along her neck, breaking the skin just ever so slightly, she shuddered beneath me and for just a moment I was reminded of this beautiful tan mare with a blonde mane that I had owned in the fifteenth century. She would run with me at a gallop for hours until her sides were covered in sweat and chest heaved in and out. She didn't know when to stop running. My Sookie was galloping beneath me now. I needed to finish this, I needed to make her stop running from whatever was driving her into this frenzy in her mind. She said she needed to feel me.

I reached down and locked my arms around her, pulling her up with me to sit, her spread across my thighs, using my strength to move her up and down my shaft while I thrust up into her at the same time, rubbing her G-spot. "I have never been this hard, wife!" I moaned in her ear as her head thrashed on my shoulder. "Open yourself up to me! Give yourself to me completely!" My hands were bruising her, and she was moaning nonstop now as I worked her toward her finish. "Come, Sookie, show me what I do to you!" I slid my fangs into her neck as I pulled her down that last time, bottoming out inside her and tripping the mother of all orgasms in Sookie as I held her there and let her thrash her pleasure against me, around me and on me. I came with her just as hard, and felt my eyes roll back in my head and the black closing in. I fought to hold on and stay with her. We fell over on the bed, still joined, her deep pants the only sound for miles.

Sealing her neck I held her and waited to see what she would say or do next. I felt her arms come down over mine and her first words surprised me very much. "I'm sorry, Eric. I didn't know how scary it was to almost lose me until tonight." I smiled against her neck at her use of words. I knew exactly what she meant but the way she said it was humorous.

"Shhh," I said kissing her anywhere my lips could reach. Her hand came up to cup my face and she turned her head to look me in the eye.

"No! No, Shhh! I am so sorry, I didn't know what it felt like to worry about losing me. You feel this every time I leave here during the day? Every time I go see Clinton?" I nodded. I could control it more effectively but I was always terrified that she would not be here when I rose and would not return to my side ever again. I held her tighter. I knew she was doing what she thought needed to be done when she left. She wasn't going just to worry me. I rocked her for a while, spooning her close from behind. Finally, she turned toward me and placed her hand on my chest rolling me over onto my back. She then climbed atop my chest, wrapping me once again in her arms and her legs, covering as much of me as she could with her body. She snuggled her head into my chest and I felt her relax then.

"Shield you," she whispered half asleep already. The same words I had used in Dallas after the bombing. The opportunistic advantage I took immediately after forever obfuscating the action I had taken to protect her. I was so lost that night, watching her with Compton, knowing how close I had come to losing her to the Fellowship. I had never moved so fast as I did when I heard that foolish human child take the warning breath before he pushed the button. It was only after that night, after the roof, after I got home, after Yvetta in the basement that I saw myself as my own worst enemy.

I had just wanted to be with her that night. Next to her, inside her, touching her, I wasn't thinking about why. I wasn't thinking it through but I had been completely serious when I told her that someday she might know the bond between maker and child.

What a long and winding road from that night to this one, where her wounds and my blood might make this bond evident to her by the time I rose the next evening. I kissed her head softly, and felt the last of the tension leave my Sookie blanket when she finally fell into a fitful sleep in my arms just as the sun rose.

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Sookie had cleaned our island home when I rose the next evening. I was at once relieved and disappointed to find that she was not my vampire child. "Not yet, anyway," she said as she kissed me good evening. I held her close, glad to feel in the bond that she had calmed since I last saw her.

"What happened to our uninvited guests?"

"I fed them to Sharky." I chuckled against her neck and then admired her cleaning skills. If I hadn't known what had happened here last night I never would have guessed. Teleportation, the answer every woman in the world needed for house cleaning.

"Darn, tootin'," she said before kissing me taking my mind away. When she finally broke the kiss I was surprised by her next words.

"Is there somewhere else we can go?" I ran through my hideaways in my mind one by one letting her see what our options were.

"OH! That one!" she wriggled in my arms excitedly.

"Are you sure? It won't bother me, but it's winter there now, and hardly the tropical paradise you have enjoyed here."

"Yes!" she squealed dancing around now, excitedly.

"You'll need warmer clothes, well come to that, _some_ clothes, Sookie." Closing her eyes a moment she her form shimmered in front of me and she was dressed in layers of thermal with a parka and ski boots. My own little snow bunny. She eyed me a moment and then I felt my own clothing appear to match hers, right down to the parka.

"Think it again, picture it in your mind clearly, Eric." She stepped into my arms as I thought of my cabin deep in the mountains of Sweden I felt the temperature change and we were there! I barely had my eyes open when I snowball hit me square in the puss. I heard her giggle and then her retreating footsteps. My little love was feeling playful tonight.

I let her lead me in circles in the snow, tiring herself out as we ran around and around the cabin, amused by her peals of delighted giggles before I finally swooped her into my arms and into the cabin. I could smell snow on the wind and I wanted to make sure that we were well provisioned with wood and that everything was secure as it had been when I had left this place. It had been a year for me, but closer to two and half with the drift from my time in Fae. I smiled as I thought about what awaited her inside, and then tried to think of anything else. I wanted to surprise her, which if course was near impossible with a telepath.

This home I had bought many years before I met Sookie. It was my retreat from the world when the world became too much to bear. I had come here during the year that she had been missing in Fae and I had returned when I had accepted that she would never love me as she did Compton. I had thought then that I had lost her forever, but I had been unable to tear down the gift I had placed here for her when she was in Fae the first time.

I had told her that I had never given up in believing that she would return to me and that had been true. I had proven it here when I made this gift for her, a bed worthy of my Sookie, a bed that I had longed to love her in for so very long, never quite believing that this dream would come true.

Stop thinking about it! I chastised myself, not wanting to give the surprise away. She wriggled from my arms and headed for the bedroom like a shot. I came up behind her just as she flipped the switch on. Her gasp told me that I had hit the mark I was seeking. "Oh, Eric! It's perfect!" I looked at it, really looked at it for the first time in years and realized just how perfect it actually was.

The bed itself was designed in king sized proportions, and the four tall posters with wires that ran between them were draped in dark blue and silver crepe material. Twining the wire were tiny blue and white lights that shimmered through the fabric like winking stars. The room I had painted to match the hangings, melding the silver gray at the bottom into shades of blue that became a perfect match for the dark blue drapes on the bed. Around the edge of the room where the wall met the ceiling was another string of tiny white shimmering lights, meaning to simulate a starry night. In the middle of the room hung a large paper lantern, it looked like the moon had risen on this bed among the clouds. I knew what it looked like but seeing it with Sookie made it just as wondrous to me as it was to her. It had not been real to me until she was there with it.

I had spent many nights working on the headboard and when I saw it now I felt the air leave my chest in shock and in realization that there was something more at work here than I had ever realized. It reassured me and it frightened me all at the same time.

The edge of the frame was roped in a Celtic design, exactly like what Sookie now bore on her left shoulder, like the tiny tattoo that I too had since our wedding night. Tattoos that I had not seen when I carved this for her. In the middle of the frame was the sacred Viking tree Yggdrasil, backbone of the nine realms and the Tree of Life. I saw now that in her branches I had carried over the Celtic design and peeking from amongst them was a tiny winged fairy girl that I had no memory of carving. "Is that me?" she asked me in a whisper, as though she were afraid someone might hear her. I slipped my arms around her and pressed myself to her back, responding to her questions and my own by wordlessly promising to shield her again.

"I honestly don't know," I whispered back to her. "I made this for you, with my own hands, but I have no memory of specifically carving the fairy." She stepped closer, taking me with her since I refused to let her go. As our perspective shifted we saw the fairy change into a more generic Celtic knot design that flowed perfectly with the rest of the branches of Yggdrasil. "Interesting," I said as I observed this change.

"It's like the MAD Magazines me and Jason used to read when we were kids," she said absently, her attention completely focused on the images that came and went depending on where we were standing in the room. "You have a sheet of paper that you have to fold and when you do it right the image that was one thing becomes something else entirely." She was about to touch it now.

"Sookie, wait!" she stopped and looked at me.

"You made this for me, right?" I nodded helplessly.

"Yes, but now I am not sure I knew exactly what I was doing." She reached for my hand.

"Then we go in together?" I nodded and stepped beside her

"Always, Sookie." Together we reached out and touched the headboard. Nothing happened. We looked at each other, eyebrows raised and then cautiously looked around the room, nothing changed. She giggled, releasing tension and I smiled as well. Sometimes a cigar was just a cigar, as they say.

I pulled her hand up to my lips and kissed it softly. "I need to go get some wood. It will be snowing soon after daybreak."

"Are there shutters for the windows in here? Surely, you didn't mean to send me adrift on cloudy dreams alone?"

"Yes, there are light proof shutters in here, as there are in all the rooms of this cabin. This is my retreat."

"I know," she said looking into my eyes letting me know that she had heard me thoughts before about coming here when I refused to give up hope, and then again when all hope had abandoned me.

"Conjure yourself some dinner, Sookie, whilst I see to the wood and windows. We lost most of the night coming here." She moved toward the kitchen area and I heard her opening cabinets and checking the pantry. She would find little in the way of human sustenance, but I knew she could provide for herself.

When I came in a short while later, arms loaded with wood, she had lit the fireplace, opened a bottle of merlot, and was sitting on the sofa looking for patterns in the flames. Stacking the wood quickly I closed the door, lowered the shutters and joined her on the sofa. She moved to me immediately, wrapping her arms around me and placing her head on my chest so that she could still see the brightly twisting flames.

I sighed in pleasure. I could barely remember now what it had been like to not sit near her and not be touching her, not have her arms around me. She was a part of me now, as I was her, and that it had ever been any different was nearly inconceivable. "I'm worried for Niall," she confessed to my chest as my hand rubbed her neck soothingly. There was nothing I could say to that. I was worried, too.

32XXXXXXXXXXXX23

The nights were long that winter we spent in our cabin. I took up painting again to capture the image of Sookie that still haunted me from our first night in Fae. She became very interested in Norse mythology spending hours questioning me about the strangest things. What do these runic symbols mean? Which is the pantheon would be referred to in this and that way? Who is the red haired man? Were there portals through water to other worlds? Had I ever seen evidence that Odin and the rest were real?

What did I know of Alfheim, the realm of the light elves, and how were they connected to Celtic mythos? She found some connections to the legends of the Fae here in Midgard, and postulated to me one night next to the fire that this is where her people had come from originally. I could not dispute her theories, I was intrigued that she had found yet another way to tie herself to me, binding us closer and validating how I saw her, as a goddess. My goddess.

Then she would disappear into a book that I had told her about and that she had called to her from some musty library around the world, only to return with more questions. As spring approached I started to feel like she might know about my heritage that I did, despite having been the one to live it firsthand.

For the first weeks that we were there she insisted on blanketing me each time we fell asleep, I understood the need and so I let her, gratefully holding her close until she fell asleep, then I would gently turn us over, curving myself around her for protection until the day took me away. Always when I woke up she was there. She loved me furiously in those early evening moments as the sun slid from the sky she would take me into her and wring her name from my lips over and over. I never stopped wanting her, and I could feel that it was the same with her. Some nights we gave into that, never leaving the bed at all. She would summon sustenance, and I would feed her as she fed me.

I kept track of my business through the satellite internet connection I had. Northman Industries has its own satellite system that orbited the Earth and kept me connected. For these events I could not avoid I video conferenced in and directed my company as needed. With Pam gone, I had lost my passion for business and started to move the pieces around the board that would eventually free me and secure our fortune. I was very close to making a sale and freeing us completely. There were just a few things I needed to take care of and it would be done. Tonight's conference with my buyers should seal the deal. Something was nagging me at the back of my mind though. Coming out of hiding to finish this deal did pose some risk to us. There was nothing to be done about it though, I had to personally sign the final paperwork in front of witnesses so the plan was to have Sookie teleport us to the location and get in and out as quickly as possible.

We had talked about it and decided together that she would be my beneficiary should anything happen to me, something she allowed by convincing me to let her set up Jason as her beneficiary. "If, and as far as I am concerned that is a big if, you go out, I will going with you, so I won't need anything. So, if you let me provide for Jason I will let you provide for me." Jason and Bridgette had been three kids now and I could understand her desire to provide for her blood, her family. It was how I felt about her, and since he had saved her from Warlow, I felt I kind of owed him one.

When we decided that this was our path we had spent some of long winter nights learning about weapons. We each had our own inherent strengths but figured that being as prepared as possible would only serve our benefit. I taught her what I knew of guns and shooting. As she demonstrated for me years before she was a natural shot, and soon her marksmanship was on par with my own, and I had the advantage of perfect vampire sight on my side. Once at practice I saw her shoot and knew that that the bullet was going to pass the target wide, when suddenly, defying all the laws of physics it turned on its course and hit the target dead center.

"SOOKIE! THAT'S CHEATING!" she laughed and danced gleefully in the snow like a little girl and not a lethal fairy woman armed to the teeth.

"It's only cheating if the opposition does it," she laughed. I had to chuckle. She always surprised me.

"It would have been most handy if you could have done that when you shot me in your living room," I said drolly.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," she said, rolling her eyes playfully at me. I shook my head, she made everything a joy, even this unwanted task of teaching her additional self-defense. "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down," she said in a sing song voice as she continued to delight in her latest trick. I smirked.

"Ok, show me some sugar," I said turning her back to the target and standing behind her. "You have to be able to focus, even in the most distracting of circumstances," I told her, pressing myself against her tightly. She relaxed into me.

"What do you want me to do?" humor had been replaced by seriousness and desire now in her tone.

"Shoot this way, and make it hit the target behind us." I expected her to resist, fool that I was, I never learned when it came to my Sookie. She let out her breath and pulled the trigger as the last "t" cleared my lips, and I felt the air shift as it passed by us, indeed moving to hit the target behind us. I turned us at vamp speed and saw it hit the target dead center.

"You gonna me this hard?" She said pushing her hips back into mine seductively. I growled, having trouble focusing myself now. Exasperated and oh so fucking turned on by this latest turn of events I took the gun from her hand and popped a shell out. I placed it in her hand.

"Hit the target without the gun firing the bullet." She scrunched her face at me, and looked up with mischief in her eyes. I took my place behind her again, looking down over her shoulder and watched in wonder as in her hand light in the form of a gun took shape around the bullet, now cradling it in a chamber. A moment later Sookie pulled the light trigger and the projectile bullet left the "gun" just as it did when she had fired from the mechanical weapon, to land dead center in the target.

"Hard enough?" she asked, looking up at me coquettishly.

"Yes, definitely," and I pressed into her so she could verify it for herself. That was the end of shooting lessons for that evening.

Later, out of breath and having run herself out she collapsed onto my chest, kissing me softly as she ran her hands through my sex tousled hair. I loved it when she did that.

"I love it when you do that" she said against my lips, echoing my thoughts. "I love it when you push me to be more than I think I could ever be. When you dare me to step up and impress you. I am only who I am because of the love I feel for you." Her words made my chest ache.

"Those are powerful words, Sookie." My hands came up to frame her face, looking deeply into her eyes letting her see how she moved me in the muted light of our bed in the clouds.

"It's a powerful feeling," she whispered back before kissing me again, pushing her love to me on our bond.


	15. The Fifth Interlude

**Come With Me Now- The Fifth Interlude**

"Give Sookie my love…"

_Let me walk this world with you Mr. Northman or watch me die._

_If you die, I die._

One thing I never lacked was the faith of my convictions. The mistake that most people made was thinking they knew what those convictions were. Of course, I retained the advantage over all of them by outliving everyone who might know any different. Everyone except Eric.

He had seen me in life before I was turned, and he had seen me the day I was turned. He would know. He always knew everything. Except one thing.

_Give my love to Sookie._

I had spared a smile when I hung up, wondering if he would finally know at last, what I had always wanted to tell her. Sookie. His Sookie. Even when she wasn't, she was his Sookie.

Eric's Sookie. Compton's Sookie. Never my Sookie.

_How sweet it could have been._

When I saw her on Compton's arm that night I knew that it was too late for me. Her awkwardness reminded me of what it was to be young and innocent and I coveted that, longed for that, longed for her. Did I want to destroy her? Protect her? Save her? I never knew, and it was usually all of those things at once.

I should have killed her that night. I wished a thousand times I had, as I watched her move further and further from me, unimpressed and uncaring about my best efforts to gain her attention. I was a material girl playing at love in man's world. I could live a thousand years and never be what she wanted.

I don't know why I have always tried to so hard to hide my feelings. No one was ever paying the slightest bit of attention to me, or them. I should have packed a bag, left town and spared myself the humiliation of living in the trench between my maker and that pathetic Confederate excuse for a vampire. Because there in that trench, between them, is where I was destined to live out this little drama from the first moment I laid eyes on her.

_Fuck it. No matter where I lived, I lived and I looked good while I did it._

Eric said the Yakuza was after us. Again. One more time. One last time, only this time it would be me with the sword, me with the chain and me with the last fucking laugh. I owed Eric that. I wanted to give her that. She would never have accepted anything else from me.

As soon as I hung up the phone I started planning. I started running, away from my feelings, toward the Yakuza, away from the past and toward the end.

_Give my love to Sookie…_

_How sweet it is…_

_I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about…_

She moved through our lives like a sheet loosed from a clothes line in a storm, weaving into our tapestry but never being a part of what we were. Never letting us be a part of her.

I didn't even know I wanted to be a part of her until she came to Fangtasia bleeding and screaming when the Maenad attacked her. Until then it was a sweet fuck and feed I painted her with in my mind. That night though, I hadn't wanted to leave her, and later when I cleaned her up and changed her bloody clothes I saw something that took me back to a time when I knew what innocence was first hand.

I could see the road that she was headed down with Eric and Bill and I knew there was nothing I could do that would change that course, but I wanted to. It was the first time I had wanted anything in a very long time. It had been even longer since I had admitted to that kind of desire.

Of course, as I warmed inside to her, my outside became colder to compensate. To protect me.

I was vacillating between pleasure at these feelings and pain over the very same ones. I swore I would do nothing and plotted plans that I hid even from myself.

It was only after the fact that I admitted to myself that I took Sookie to the basement so that when she saw him with Yvetta she would push back, and realize that this was not where she wanted to be. That Eric was not who she wanted to be with in this life.

It was only after the fact that I realized my interest in Yvetta was designed to raise the competitor in Eric, and shift his attention away from sweet Sookie. It was only after the fact when I felt his pain and saw her wipe tears from her eyes surreptitiously as she left Fangtasia that I felt any remorse at my tactics. It was only after that I realized that even if he lost her she would never ever be mine. He wasn't in the way, he could have been in Oland and she would never have seen me standing beside her.

_I'm not in the mood for lesbian weirdness tonight, Pam_.

That or any other night, sadly.

The night he chained her in the basement I was planning to take her away before he returned, but Yvetta and Bill fucked that plan up, and when she returned I was forced to stand by and let them take her further into darkness.

Eric could have talked his way out of it with Russell, and they would have tried to find us, but I could have kept her safe. Eric was good at coming up with plans, he would have found another and by the time the dust settled he would have forgotten Sookie Stackhouse.

Seeing her fed on by Russell and knowing that Eric planned to end himself to save her was more than I could take. He was my maker! He was going to give his life for her and for some debt that mattered to him to so much for his dead family. When I watched him walk into the sun I felt the depth of my own betrayal cut into me as the tears ran down my face.

The guilt kept me glued to the camera when Bill called to be released so he could save Sookie. I couldn't look away. I couldn't consider at first saving her. She would never want me, and Eric was dying for her, better to let her slip away, too, perhaps to find him in the afterlife. Better that I lose her, too than let Compton have her when my maker was no more. It was that guilt that held me in place, backing Eric's deception with the best poker face I ever fucking played to get Russell out into the sun.

In the end though, I just couldn't let her go. Nor could I admit my feelings for her, so I let Compton save her life while I watched my maker burn. I had never felt so much despair as I did in that moment as I watched my world burn along with Eric.

When by some miracle Eric survived I swore to myself that I would let her go, that I would stop caring about Sookie Stackhouse because when she disappeared I could see what she meant to him.

All those fucking nights in her ratty run down house before he spent a fortune to make it more than a hovel. All those fucking nights in his cubby there, and then running away to mountains of Sweden when he finally couldn't stand another moment of being in this world without her.

I wish I could say it was his feelings that mattered the most, but I kept flashing back to her smacking Bill Compton's stupid face and running out in the sun to save Eric.

She was dumb as stump, but I loved her, and she loved him.

I could see it, even if no one else could. Even if she was blind, I was watching her heart so closely I couldn't miss it. No matter how much I wanted to fucking miss it.

I had my pride. I refused to throw my hat into ring that I had no hope of being victorious in. So, when the chance presented itself I pushed her toward him.

_With what you are, Faerie Princess, you need to be somebody's or you won't be at all. Eric is handsome, he's rich, and in his own way he cares about you. He really does_.

When I found them together in that stupid old house they both loved so much I pushed again, begging her to keep him there, knowing that with how they felt about each other it would only be a matter of time.

I was never really sure if my slip to King Bill was completely accidental.

Especially when I saw the look on her face when Eric kneeled to die for her and I totally lost my shit. I had planned for it to happen, for them finally be together, but the reality of it brought out the worst in me. I could not lose them both, and in my moment of fear and despair anger took over and I fired that rocket right at Sookie's fucking head, wanting to erase her from my own head once and for all.

When Eric sent me away I collapsed in on myself, crying on Ginger about Sookie and her fucking fairy vagina, and her incredibly stupid name. Emotions are ugly things and in that moment I hated her as much as I loved her for never even having noticed I was right there, waiting to be seen, to be loved.

And when I finally boxed all that useless shit up and went to set things right with her and my maker she melted me with her stupid cow eyes and convinced me to turn Tara. I still can't figure out how she did it. Maybe it was the "I'll owe you one," and the totally stupid fucking idea that I could find some way to turn that to my advantage and make her mine.

Still, Tara had been a gift to me and I had loved her. In my own way. Not as much as I loved Eric and not as much as I loved Sookie and in the end I had to leave. I wanted to find Eric, yes, but when I sobered up and realized that I had completely fucked up and hugged Sookie in a my drunkenness that I was not going to be able to stay there with her.

So, I ran.

I labeled it following, and I did. I followed that fucking Viking all over the goddamned world. I played the fucking bucket game to find that son of a bitch and then I got him off his ass and on his feet the first place they took him was back to fucking Shreveport.

Back to fucking Sookie Stackhouse.

Back to the fucking Sookie Stackhouse that would never be mine.

It was so fucking dangerous for me to be here. So fucking chipping at my guard, at my walls, at the very core of me. I fucked up again when he came out Compton's McMansion and told us we were going to Fangtasia and called her a fungus, unconsciously hearkening back to him telling her that perhaps he would grow on her so long ago. Inadvertently admitting that she had grown on me!

Our fates had been intertwined since she walked into Fangtasia in that fucking sundress. Only death would free me.

As I planned I called in favors and learned that the Yakuza hunting me, Five, the Dragon Warrior, was the former lover of Mr. Gus. I saw symmetry in that. We had ended Mr. Gus to save Sookie, and now I was going to end his lover to save her again.

In a detached way I found it fascinating that one small waitress from the ass end of Louisiana could have such impact on two people's lives who had been born a world away from her, but I suppose the same could be said of Eric, Compton and myself.

We had traveled through time to find Sookie Stackhouse. We have lived many human lifetimes to be here in this place and in this time to take her hand and walk her into the darkness. There was symmetry in that as well.

I learned that Five was in league with DeCastro and Madden out of Las Vegas and carefully laid my plans so that I could lure the Yakuza out alone. I could handle them, if I saw them coming, but the vampires might tip the scales in their favor. It wasn't hard. DeCastro rarely left Vegas, and Madden rarely left DeCastro.

I knew they were using the Yakuza as stalking horse to find me and Eric while keeping their own hands clean. After taking care of my financial matters and making sure that everything reverted to Eric, I went to San Francisco.

I had bought the building that used to house my brothel, and restored it after the earthquake in 1906. I maintained it, but it was unused. It was my sanctuary like Sweden was for Eric. When I needed to be reminded of what would have happened, when I needed appreciation for the life I had now, I retreated to San Francisco.

When I was there I would walk among the graves and wonder which would have been have been mine if Eric had not saved me from Bill and Lorena. It would have been a race to see if they could kill me before the syphilis had done the job.

It was there that I waited, lost in my memories, lost in the past until the Yakuza found me.

I had seen Eric fight with a sword many times over our years together. I used to watch him practice, awed by the fluidity and grace his large frame conjured as it moved. He had told me once that before he even touched the sword he would center himself in his mind. He would let go of everything he was, everything he wanted to be, because to fight was to die. When you went into battle anything you took with you only slowed you down. There could be only you, the sword and the blood that was to come.

I was sitting in the middle of what had been my receiving room in 1905. I had emptied the room of all furnishings when I arrived, as I had emptied my mind tonight. When they came in on cat feet I rose from the dark, fangs down, like the wrath of God himself. My intelligence had told me that while they were all formidable warriors it was Five that would be the challenge.

I moved like dark rain across the room and decapitated four of them before they saw me coming. It was fast, clean and oh so sexy that I wished for a moment that Eric and Sookie could see me.

Of course, it was letting that baggage in that allowed Five to land a blow with her blade, cutting me across the back as her last companion dropped headless to the floor. I moved away at vamp speed to distance myself and heal.

Watching Itsuko Muramoto from across the room I was thunderstruck by her lethal beauty. I could see the edges of her legendary blue dragon tattoos on her neck and wrists and wished for a moment that we could drop or phallic weapons and worship together at the altar of Sappho, but I knew from the look in her eyes that this, too was not to be for me.

This acceptance unhinged the thoughts I had been suppressing and Sookie cascaded through my mind like a waterfall. I screamed my rage and pain and attacked Five with everything I had. We danced, swords flashing like partners who had practiced long together, the only light in the darkened room was the sparks from where our blades met. Each blow I landed she returned and knocked loose another memory that I had tried to leave outside the battle.

_How sweet it is…_

_Now I don't remember telling you lavender was my favorite color…_

_I'm starting to see what all the fuss is about…_

_With what you are, Faerie Princess, you need to be somebody's or you won't be at all…_

_Give Sookie my love…_

I lunged and buried my sword into Itsuko Muramoto to hilt at the same moment she pulled a stake out of thin air and rammed it into my heart.

_How sweet it is,_ I thought as I felt myself start to come apart and I saw the light fade from Itsuko's eyes. I was laughing when I died, Itsuko's stake in my heart, Sookie's name on my lips and a vision of young beautiful girl in white dress in my mind.

_In another life, my faerie princess…_


	16. Half-Life Conclusion

**Come With Me Now-Half-Life Conclusion**

_What's the half-life on 'Happily Ever After? For me and Sookie it should be just about infinity divided by two, but things never quite work out like they should when it comes to me and Sookie_. I felt her stiffen against my back and knew she had just heard that.

"Damn right I did, Northman and you cut it the fuck out right now!" Her hissed whisper made it plain she was not fucking around. I felt the despair crack in my chest, a little light coming in at her words. She chucked softly behind me and for a moment pressed her back tighter to mine. _Gods, she is amazing. Looking down the barrel of a gun loaded with iron bullets and she is thinking of me._ "Fuckin'-A", she confirmed. Pulling out of my downward spiral I smiled slightly as I looked straight ahead and found myself facing a barrel full of silver bullets.

We were surrounded. A dozen guns with various flavors of pain encircled me and woman I loved beyond all things. It was so quiet in the room I could hear the sink drip…drip…dripping behind me and to the right. The dozen adversaries that encircled us holding us at gunpoint were slowly realizing they had actually caught us. When their brains caught up with their muscles things were going to come out of pause and we were going into fast forward. We had run out of places to hide in this world. _She deserved better than this! _She laughed then, out loud.

"There is nothing better than you, than us, Eric." My chest seized at her words. I felt her in the full bond we now shared, there no fear. No regret. Only love, deep spiraling, unending love. No matter what happened when someone pushed play, right then I knew that the time we had was right. It was the best of my thousand years and I would trade it for nothing, even if it ended right now. I pushed that feeling of love and triumph back to her and again she pressed her back to mine. I wanted to touch her, hold her close, but like myself both her hands were full of metal. We might die here but we would not be going to Valhalla alone. We would be taking these assholes with us, and she would stand beside me and fight their unworthy shades all the way to Freya's hall.

Today was a good day to die. In the moments I had left, Sookie pressed to my back, guns in her hands, guns in mine and Death hovering in the corner, remembrance tugged at me. Like a loose thread in my mind I went back to where this all started. I wanted to spend what time I had left remembering how I got my Happily Ever After, because that is what mattered. How long it lasted was always beyond our control. What mattered was that after so very long, I had reached that place with her at my side. I had reached that place with Sookie, the woman of my undead dreams.

I saw her then, protecting me from Niall in the moonlight beside Caddo Lake…

…Her spark glowing bright as we danced in Fae…

…In that dappled forest of Fae asking me to say something about her beautiful new wings on display…

..Her smile when I proposed to her and she said, "Ask me again,"…

… Her face locked in ecstasy in the tree bed above that forest floor…

…Her face lit with joy as we explored the ocean floor around our home in the islands…

…The glory of her when she killed Neave and turned to me bleeding with her arms open, welcoming me…

…Her dancing in the snow like a mischievous child when I caught her using magic during target practice…

I had traveled through time the long way round to get to this place and everything I had endured had been worth the destination I finally arrived at, here with her in this moment.

We were in the Northman Industries building in New York, where I had come to sign the final paper work that would dissolve my corporation. We had just arrived when the doors opened around us and a team of armed mercenaries poured in, no doubt hired by DeCastro.

As they invaded the room Sookie and I had moved back to back pulling the guns that we had concealed on bodies. So far, not a shot had been fired, but that was because time seemed to have stopped. I wondered what they were thinking, what they were waiting for, and dreaded what their hesitation might mean.

Before I let them take us apart I would force them to kill me here. I would be no play toy for DeCastro, and neither would my precious Sookie. If she could not get away I left her to that fate.

Three things happened at the same time in the space of another drip from the sink.

_D-_

The mercenaries surrounding us collectively let out a sigh as their fingers started to squeeze the triggers on their weapons.

_R-_

A dome of lavender light formed a shield around Sookie and myself, pulsing in what I hoped was our defense from the metal hell about to rain down.

_I-_

And I heard a voice in my head that I had feared I would never hear again**_. Tsk, Tsk,_** **_Viking, I am disappointed that you give up so easily. Pick up your massive ego and use it to shield the woman you promised me you would protect to the last drop of your ancient blood._**

The room exploded in gunfire, bullets bouncing around and off the shield of light turning on our enemies, dropping them one by one as surely as if they had turned their weapons on themselves.

_P-_

Sookie and I were left standing knee deep in a room full of corpses, and we didn't even so much as have a hair out of place. Before us, just as the shield dropped appeared Niall, a twinkle in his eye and his sword strapped to his back. He looked…energized and even madder than he had by Caddo Lake.

Something had happened since last we had met, something that pushed him right to his limits and he bore the scars of it on his mind and heart. He stopped and looked at me sharply, hearing my thoughts.

**_There is no mistake you make that does not come back and demand that you finish it, lest it finish you_**, he sent to me and I nodded once, knowing what he meant better than most ever could. Perhaps we could commiserate on our mutual fuckery some night around a warm fire as he had told me wanted to do when last we spoke. He nodded to me then, and moved to hug Sookie.

"How did you find us?" Sookie was asking as she held him tight and he closed his eyes, returning her embrace.

"You are my blood, both of you," he said, looking at me meaningfully over her shoulder. "I could find you anywhere."

"We were so worried when Neave and Lochlan came for me, that you had perished in your war with Mab!" She pulled back to look up at him, concern plain in her face. He smiled and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"You are well then? They did not hurt you?" Her face transformed for a moment into the Sookie that had killed Neave and demanded that I finish Lochlan. Still scary as hell, I thought.

"Nothing we couldn't handle," she said in a cold and confident tone that still did things to my libido that left my psyche scarred, confused and enslaved. "And you, Granddaddy, are you well?" He sighed before answering, six thousand years bearing down on him with its full weight and I was awed at his strength and tenacity.

"Yes, child, now that I know you are well, I am at peace."

The wellspring of Sookie's stubbornness could be traced to this old fairy before me. They both turned to me, smirking at my thoughts. I shrugged. I wasn't thinking anything that they didn't already know.

"You have business here still?" he asked, likely hearing the thoughts of my terrified lawyer in the next room who was cowering under his desk, heart racing and from the smell, his bowels thoroughly emptied into his designer underwear.

"Yes, we'll only be a moment." I took Sookie's hand, consciously held my breath and advised Sookie to do the same as best she could. It took longer to coax him from under the desk than it did to sign away NuBlood. When we joined Niall the mad glint in his eye had returned and he had a look that rivaled the one that scared me so much from Sookie. Another mystery solved. She was channeling him when she did that.

"You ready to finish this now?" He asked, knowing the answer before he even asked the question. One by one our adversaries had fallen. All that remained was DeCastro and his dog Madden. Clinton was still a wild card that could go either way, but that too would be settled this night one way or the other. We would hide no more and wait to be found. It was time to take the battle to them.

32XXXXXXXXXXX23

When we landed in DeCastro's private chambers I took a moment to appreciate travel by Fairy Express. Flying was a gift that I could thank my maker for, and it was glorious but paled in comparison to willing your fucking self around the world by mere thought.

_Of course, if I could think myself to any location it would be-_

"Watch it, Eric! My Granddaddy can hear that, too!" She was actually blushing. I found out why a moment later when she whispered, "Later," to me, as if he couldn't hear that, too. I smiled and shook my head at her ability to turn even going into the proverbial lion's den into a joy that made me want to take her into my arms and spin her around in time with the joy pounding through me.

**_Focus, children, focus!_** Came Niall's warning that got us both facing forward again and our minds on the task at hand.

There was no one in the room we had appeared in, but there were sounds coming up from the stairs in the far corner of the room that sounded like someone being whipped below us. The loud slap of leather on skin at regular timed intervals pulled us in that direction.

_Let me go first_, I sent to them, stepping in front and vamping down the stairs at top speed. I found Madden shackled in silver in the middle of the room with DeCastro whipping him from behind. In less than a second I had secured DeCastro in silver alongside Madden and like that, our enemies were at our mercy.

"Come down!" I called out and moments later Sookie and Niall were at my side.

"Fucking Northman," DeCastro ground out less than delighted to see me.

"Your mercenaries failed in New York."

"But how did you get here so-"he stopped then and truly took in my companions for the first time. "So, it's true then. Telepathy and teleportation." He looked at Sookie with dreamy eyes, like a human might see a well prepared T-bone steak, and a tiny sliver of drool fell from the corner of his mouth. My fangs came down and I snapped his neck twisting his head around backwards so that he could no longer see my Beloved Sookie.

"I'm the one you want to keep your eye on here, DeCastro. I'm the one who holds your life in my hands." He moaned from the pain and tilted his head from side to side, adjusting as his neck healed and turned the right way back around. I was bluffing though, and if he had the sense of a sock he knew he was ten seconds away from being a puddle of goo that I was about to track back up his fine marble stairs.

_Can you read him?_ I asked my telepathic companions. Niall stepped forward and answered my question by asking DeCastro one. "Who else knows of the Fae?" DeCastro did not speak but he did not need to. Niall tore into his mind like a paper bag, shredding as he sought the answers he wanted and sparing no mercy for the vampire before him.

"NO!" Madden screamed beside him, struggling against his bonds. I looked at Sookie and she stepped forward to question him.

"What do you know of fairies?" Moments later his screams joined his masters and the room became a symphony of pain punctuated with the blood that poured from their ears and eyes. They stepped back almost in unison, looking at each other, comparing notes and then turned to me as one.

"Viking, the honor is yours," Niall made a slight bow and he and Sookie departed back upstairs leaving me with our prisoners. I took a deep breath, reveling in their blood and their pain.

"You killed my Pam," I growled at DeCastro. He laughed.

"The Yakuza killed your progeny, not me."

"You called them." He shrugged, he knew there was no point in arguing. My gaze passed to Madden who was hanging by his arms, barely conscious from Sookie's rampage through his mind. I looked at DeCastro again, and for the first time saw unease in his eyes. He cared for Madden in his own warped way. Good, that would make this even sweeter.

Faster than DeCastro could track I broke the leg off a chair in the corner and appeared before Madden, slapping him hard across the face to arouse him from his stupor. His eyes jerked open and he looked around the room, seeing DeCastro bound next to him he immediately began to plead. "I'm so sorry master! I have failed you again by letting this happen. Please you must forgive me, please say that you do!" He was twisting in his chains, and they weren't all literal, to see the vampire that had fine-tuned the monster lurking in his soul.

I sensed DeCastro was about to speak, so before he could grant the forgiveness that Madden had pleaded for so elegantly, I staked him in the heart, forever closing his ears to the peace his tortured soul desired from his pseudo maker.

The room reverberated with DeCastro's scream, his garbled words of forgiveness that fell on squishy non-hearing ears. I laughed and thought Pam would have truly have appreciated this moment. I still ached for her sometimes. I knew that I always would, but I would honor her now, as best I could.

"Ouch! That stings a bit doesn't it? To not be able to help those that you care for when they need you the most." I could have been talking about tea on a Sunday I sounded so calm and distant from the moment, but nothing was further from the truth. I was right there, filled with murderous rage.

DeCastro let out a stream of boring curses. Standard bad guy lines that left me bored and unmoved. I had expected him to be more original. After all he had made some brilliant moves. Moves that left me decimated, but still appreciating their symmetry. I could admire a thing and wish to destroy it at the same time.

"It's funny you know, if you weren't such a twisted fuck that you had Madden tied up when we arrived you could have at least put up a good fight. I hope you enjoyed tapping that crazy ass just one last time, because it will be the last one you ever touch in this life." I moved in closer now, wiping the traces of Madden off the improvised stake in my hand, wanting to deprive him of even that last touch of his monstrous lover.

"They will find her, you know that, don't you?" DeCastro mumbled, raising his head one last time to look at me. "I told them all about the Fae and they will hunt her until there is no place left to run. You will never see a moment's peace on this world Viking, I promise you that! You will run until the sun turns you to ash and then I will find you on the other side and fuck your ghost!"

I smiled then, recognizing the desperation of a dead man coming to grips with his fate. "Not even in hell would I bottom for you, Felipe. You would never be man enough for me," I said leaning in close to him and driving the stake into his heart right along with my words. The satisfying splash of him disintegrating at my feet actually did ease a little of the ache in my heart for Pam and I sent her a silent thank you for being my child and for her sacrifice.

_Love you, Pam. Always…_

As promised, I walked right through DeCastro's residue and up his stairs slowly, pressing a large gooey print onto each one with deep satisfaction, walking him off, and leaving him behind, symbolically as well as actually. I had nearly reached the top when I heard gunfire break out in the room where I knew Sookie and Niall were waiting for me.

Moving at vamp speed I came in to see that DeCastro's security team had discovered our infiltration of his compound and had come to save him. _Too late_, I thought smugly as I watched the battle unfold between the fairies and the security team.

As before, Niall had shielded them from the bullets but this time, I saw Sookie empty clips in her own guns, dropping guard after guard, catching her shots and bringing them back to her target as she had in practice. When her clips ran out, she dropped the mechanical guns and reached into her pockets coming out with two handfuls of wooden bullets that I had insisted she take as back up.

"Wooden bullets are designed to kill vampires, but they are still bullets and will at least inflict harm if not death on a target."

I watched her now, form her guns of light and target the guards firing at them right between the eyes, taking them down one after the other. Niall was there as back up, but he was holding back, maintaining the shield protecting them and letting her do the heavy lifting. He seemed just as impressed as I was the first time I had seen that trick.

When she went back to her pockets again, I vamped into the shield and pulled both of them close. Taking his cue, Niall teleported us to safety in the middle of the desert outside Vegas.

Immediately, I grabbed Sookie closer, checking her for wounds, running my hands all over her, not trusting the bond to tell me if she had been hit with a stray bullet. When I got to her sides she started giggling, writhing to get away from me as I accidentally tickled her in my quest to determine that she was sound.

"STOP! STOP!" she screamed laughing uncontrollably. I knew then she was safe and forgetting that I was covered in left over vampire juice I pulled her close, taking her feet off the ground and spun her around and around in my arms, kissing her soundly sending her my pride and love through the bond.

When I set her down and she saw that we were both now covered in blood her joy immediately disappeared, turning to concern as now she frisked me for wounds. "I'm fine," I told her gently, calming her with my words and hands, now caressing her shoulders gently. Her touch rather than inducing peals of laughter from me instead aroused the beast in my heart, but we were not alone and there was still work to do this night.

She looked up at me, the moonlight reflecting in her eyes as it had that first night that the three of us had been together and as one we promised each other, "Later." I rested my forehead against hers for a moment, closing my eyes and giving thanks to the powers that be that we had come through that unscathed. Finally, holding hands we turned to Niall and found him with his back to us, a few yards away, staring out into the desert night.

After a moment he turned to us and cleared his throat. "So, Clinton?" Sookie nodded and stepped closer, taking me with her as she held my hand.

"I want to go alone."

"Is this wise?" he asked us both. I wanted desperately to say no, but knew that to this point she had dealt with him alone, to show up now enforce could undo all her delicate work in attempting to make an ally of this man.

"Yes," I answered surprising all three of us. "Sookie can handle this," sounding confident in her, and I was, completely confident in the amazing woman at my side. Clinton was the source of any doubt that might live in my heart about this plan. "But, you can't go like that. It would give the wrong impression." Looking down at herself, she nodded and changed before my eyes, and then she changed my clothes as well. She stepped into my arms then and hugged me tight.

"I'll be right back, promise," she said to me. I hugged her just as tight.

"You better be." Since our marriage she had never broken a promise to me. I was counting on that streak to hold now.

32XXXXXX23

_A/N- This is the final chapter of CWMN, but there will be an epilogue in the next few days that ties up what happened with Clinton, and explores some of what is next for Eric and Sookie with their HEA._

_I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it. It was so much fun to turn TB upside and hopefully use all the things that we didn't see to combat the drivel that we did._

_As always, thanks for reading! *hugs*_


	17. Epilogue

**Come With Me Now-Epilogue**

I looked down at Sookie asleep in my arms and buried my face in her hair, hiding the smile that seemed to spread across my face whenever I looked at her. She sighed, and snuggled deeper into my side, her hand clutching my shirt a little tighter as small snore escaped her lips. I had teased her about snoring the other night and she had refused to believe me. For a moment I looked around for my phone so I could record her and then at the last minute realized that I wanted her to keep her illusions. If she really thought she snored she might not be so willing to use me as a pillow. That would definitely be my loss, even if I won the argument.

"Very wise, my friend," Niall said from where he was seated in a chair to the right of the sofa. The fire was dying down for the night. We had talked most of it away, and I was wondering if I should add more wood to keep Sookie warm, while hating to disturb her when Niall rose from his chair and did it for me.

_Thank you,_ I thought to him, not wanting to risk waking her by speaking. He waved my thanks away, taking his seat again and staring off into the flames. _Do you think she is right?_ I asked him, wondering what his thoughts were on Sookie's suppositions regarding the connection between the Fae and the Light Elves of Alfheim. He took so long to answer I thought perhaps he was lost in his thoughts and had not heard me.

**_Perhaps_**, he finally sent to me. **_I was very small when my tribe was completely annihilated by Warlow, but I remember whispers among the elders that might have been about where we came from before this place. It is shrouded in thousands of years of the past and I can't be sure. I suppose the most telling signs we have are the similarity in your cultures designs to the tattoos that are inherent to the Fae._**

**_Each of us who have the spark have some version of them unique to their elemental alignment. Just because I can't remember doesn't mean that she isn't right._** He was silent awhile then, looking at her in my arms. I could tell that in many ways he still found her as much a mystery as I did.

Once we had returned to Sweden he had asked her to teach him what they now called The Guns of Light. She had been delighted to be able to share something with him for a change and had immediately sat down with him to disassemble her mechanical handguns as I had taught her to do when cleaning them, so that he could see the inner parts and pieces, the better to visualize them. In no time I had two gunslingers of light in my cabin, and told them in no uncertain terms to go the hell outside and practice when the painting of Sookie that I had done was wounded.

After calming down I had joined them and saw her also show him how to redirect bullets that were wide on the target. They huddled for a bit then, whispering between them and I saw her step back and close her eyes concentrating very hard. Suddenly in her hand appeared a sword of light and in Niall's hand a spear made of the same.

I watched them step back and bow to each other before entering into a furious session of sparring that had my fangs down and my fists ready to kick that old fairy's ass before I saw how beautifully she held her own.

_Endless days and nights of training she had told me_, and my suspicions of her beautifully toned muscles were confirmed. The only thing new here were they types of weapons they were using. Later, after they had worn themselves out and I had calmed down and retracted my fangs she explained that the weapons were made of their life force, and that to use them, especially in battle like that was very draining. It wasn't something she could do for long, but in a pinch, as with her guns of light, it could very well save her life.

That night just before dawn I had rubbed her aching muscles gently and soaked her in a hot bath with a cool vampire at her back. It was a combination that she told me she found more intoxicating than gin and tonic. Knowing her affection for the drink I had purred my pleasure at her compliment and set about making her drunker with soft kisses on her neck. It wasn't long before she forgot her aching muscles and started to be more concerned with mine.

Turns out a hot bath and a hotter woman between my thighs are better than B negative fresh from the vein. I think she purred at my compliment then, but I couldn't be sure between her moans of pleasure and could have only imagined her response. I had always had an active fantasy life when it came to Miss Stackhouse. However, the one that Mrs. Northman inspired made it the rudimentary imaginings of a small boy.

She slayed me, and then she brought me back to do it again and again. I prayed every night giving thanks for the bounty that was mine.

**_You will go with her then?_** Niall broke me from my memories of my glorious passionate Sookie.

_I would visit all the nine realms with this woman if she asked me to._

**_Yes, I think I just heard you recalling several visits you have already taken out of this world._** I smirked, glad that Sookie was missing this conversation. I had no wish to cause her discomfort, but the truth was the truth. **_When do you think you will go?_**

_In a few months. She has more research she wants to do, and of course she still hopes to convince you to come along with us_. He chuckled then.

**_I have lived most of life here, and made a world of my own. I cannot abandon them to search for a home that has never been mine. No, I will stay and continue what she has begun with Clinton_**.

When Sookie had left us in the desert to meet with Clinton she had told him of DeCastro's demise and asked him one last time to help her and us to protect the supernaturals from further abuse by the US Government. By some miracle he had listened, and with DeCastro no longer in his way he made moves to shut down the testing facilities and open talks between the New Authority and the US leaders.

It was a tenuous relationship, where at first each side had been waiting for a chance to jump at any excuse to turn around and head back in the direction they had been going. Clinton changed their minds, speaking passionately about what this country was supposed to stand for, a shining bastion of goodness and right to the oppressed and needy.

In just a few short months he had made giant inroads into forming a relationship that was built on mutual respect and honesty. The game had changed after the destruction of the First Authority and the tribes of Hep-V infected vamps that roamed the countryside. Each side acknowledged their mistakes and seemed genuine about more than just lip service to a solution that could benefit both the vampire and the human race.

It was a relationship further cemented when a vampire saved the Clinton from a terrorist attack led by the Fellowship of the Sun. He used that to bring home that evil not only existed here on home soil but the human race as guilty as any other race when it came to heinous acts. Clinton had kept the secret of the Fae and worked to destroy and discredit all the evidence that DeCastro had gathered.

The Fae were safe, and that is what mattered to me most, because they were my family now. Once again Sookie had proven herself more than a match for me by turning the tides on what I had been sure was the end of vampires, maybe all supernaturals due in no small part to my own foolish recklessness.

She had saved me again. She always saved me.

~The End~

A/N- Thank you Gyllene for inspiring me to try this! Thank you all for taking this trip with me. J


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